Kit Kats from Japan are displayed for sale at Economy Candy in New York's Lower East Side, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)2025-04-06T11:09:16Z NEW YORK (AP) Economy Candys shelves brim with sweets from around the world gummies from Germany, lollipops from Spain, chocolates from Japan and a panoply of candies from across the U.S.Standing amid it all, columns of bright jellybeans to his left and exotic Kit Kats to his right, owner Mitchell Cohen is quick with his assessment of how many of this shops 2,000-plus items are affected by the historic round of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump.I think all of them, Cohen says at his store on New Yorks Lower East Side.Few corners of the American economy are untouched, directly or indirectly, by the sweeping tariffs being imposed by Trump. Even a little store like Economy Candy.Cohen had just begun to feel a barrage of inflation-driven price increases from suppliers ease when the tariff threats arrived. For a business with a name like Economy Candy, he wants to remain affordable but fears how high some prices may have to climb in the coming months. I think its gonna be another round of this hyperinflation on some items, says 39-year-old Cohen. If were putting tariffs everywhere, it is going to go up. Stepping into Economy Candy feels like a time warp. Its name is emblazoned on a sign in a vintage, blaring red script, and crossing below its green-and-white striped awning, past the bins of Smarties, butterscotches and Lemonheads in the front window, an indecipherable sweetness fills the air, oldies music sounds overhead and customers mill around stacks of candy bars they forgot still existed. It represents just a blip in the countrys $54 billion candy industry. But it was already feeling the weight of surges in prices of cocoa and other ingredients before tariffs were layered on.Candy and gum prices are up about 34% from five years ago and 89% from 2005, according to Consumer Price Index data. Price, according to the National Confectioners Association, has become the top factor in consumers candy purchase decisions, outweighing a buyers mood. About a third of Economy Candys products are imported, crowded on shelves and tables near the stores rear. There arent just more German Haribo varieties than the Haribo store in Germany, as Cohen claims, but gummies the brand makes in France, Austria and Britain. They have every Milka bar they can find in Switzerland, every type of Leone hard candies that Italy churns out and as many exotic Kit Kats from Japan as they can fit.On products like these, the tariffs toll is obvious. Pistachio Snickers bars are from India, now subject to 26% tariffs, while passion fruit mousse Snickers are from Portugal, now under the 20% European Union levies. But even an American-made Snickers isnt immune.While the bars may roll off conveyors in Texas, they rely on ingredients from around the globe. Sourcemap, which tracks supply chains, says Snickers bars are made with chocolate from Guyana, peanuts from Argentina and sugar from Brazil, wrapped up in packaging from Canada. All are now subjected to varying levels of tariffs. Theres a lot of ingredients in there that have to come from other countries, says Andreas Waldkirch, an economics professor at Colby College who teaches a class on international trade. Unless youre talking about something very simple from your local farmers market, almost every product relies on ingredients from elsewhere. Those indirect costs are really whats going to drive up prices.The story repeats with American candies across the store the boxes of Nerds and bags of Sugar Babies and rolls of Smarties are all inextricably tied to the global supply chain.A table teeming with those domestic delicacies takes center stage near Economy Candys entrance. Cohen took over the store from his parents, who took it over from their parents before. He got his first haircut in the store. He was behind the register as a child. He took his wife by on their first date.As a kid, everything on the stores centerpiece table of American treats cost 59 cents. By 2020, the price was $1.29, but customers who bought a whole box paid a discounted rate of $1 per piece. Now, Cohen cant even get them wholesale at that price.Today, he sells the items on the table for $1.59. Cohen calls the selection a loss leader but thinks its important to showcase his stores affordability. Once the tariffs are fully implemented, hes not sure hell be able to put off price increases. When your margins are coming down and your dollar doesnt go as far at the end of the day, you really start to feel it, he says. But I dont want anyone to come into Economy Candy and not think that its economical.The biggest-ticket implications of the tariff blitz understandably gain the most attention the thousands of dollars a cars price tag may grow, the tens of thousands that disappear from a retirement account in a single day. But here among the root beer barrels and licorice strands, youre reminded that small-dollar items are affected too, and so are the families selling them. At its birth, the business Cohens grandfather started focused on shoe and hat repairs. But in the wake of the Great Depression, when few in a neighborhood of crowded tenements had money for such fixes, the business pivoted. Candy, once relegated to a cart out front, took over the store.In the 88 years since, business hasnt always been Chuckles and Zagnuts. The Sept. 11 attacks kept tourists away and had sales sagging and the pandemic closed the store and forced it to pivot to online sales.If tariffs upend things, Cohen isnt sure how he might adapt again. He sells products that arent made in America and he sells American products made with ingredients from across the globe. He had just been making headway on beginning international sales, but the web of tariff rules may make it impossible.The average U.S. tariff could rise to nearly 25% if the import taxes Trump put on goods from dozens of countries are fully implemented Wednesday. That would be the highest rate in more than a century, including tariffs widely blamed for worsening the Great Depression.Trump said imposing the tariffs amounted to a liberation day for a country that has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by friend and foe alike, insisting it was very, very good news for the U.S.Cohen isnt sure how that can be true for a business like his.I can understand bringing manufacturing and bringing things back to America, but you know, we rely on raw materials that just arent native to our country, he says. And its not like I can get a green tea Japanese Kit Kat from an American company.As Cohen stood before mounds of strawberry candies in shiny wrappers and little cubes of caramel in cellophane, the first word of the tariffs concrete impact on him arrived. A French supplier emailed saying it was immediately imposing a 5% surcharge due to the tariffs, expressing regret for the move and hope that the situation will be resolved swiftly.Cohen wore a smile anyway. He wants this to be a happy place for visitors.You travel back to a time when nothing mattered, Cohen says, when you didnt worry about anything.___Matt Sedensky can be reached at [emailprotected] and https://x.com/sedensky. MATT SEDENSKY Sedensky is a national writer for The Associated Press. twitter mailto