U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) met with a group of small business owners and entrepreneurs in Albuquerque on Thursday to discuss how the effects of tariffs, the Iran war and rising fuel costs are increasing their cost of doing business and vowed to “push back against policies that don’t make sense.”
“It’s so frustrating to see how things are impacting people who are doing everything right and being part of the solution: Starting businesses, getting their education and building right here in the state,” Heinrich told the group of small business leaders. “We can turn this around. We can get rid of tariffs, we could support policies that bring down costs instead of increase them. I just think it’s all past due right now because people are struggling in a way that I haven’t seen in a really long time.”
Heinrich met with the group at the offices for the Women’s Economic Self-Sufficiency Team, a statewide nonprofit that coaches, trains and incubates small businesses. The four business leaders sat around Heinrich at a horseshoe-shaped table and individually shared their experiences navigating the current economic uncertainty with him.
WESST President and CEO Lindsey Kay told Heinrich that tariffs and fuel prices, in particular, have made it virtually impossible for businesses to have reliable cost projections.
“When we talk about small business, particularly in New Mexico, we’re not just talking about business, we’re talking about the critical engine that keeps the economy running,” she said.
Last month, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez co-signed a letter asking Congress to issue refunds to businesses and residents over President Donald Trump’s “illegal tariffs.”
New Mexico’s food and agricultural industries, which generate tens of billions of dollars in economic activity for the state annually, are especially feeling the strain, business leaders said.
Briana Smith, a manager with the South Valley Economic Development Center, which focuses on economic revitalization and business incubation, said the unpredictable nature of the economy is affecting things as routine as produce hitting grocery store shelves.
“We kind of see it full circle, from the farmers who are now scared to sell us a head of cabbage because they don’t know what the tariffs on fertilizer are going to be,” she told Heinrich. “It’s hurting everyone.”
Workers in one of New Mexico’s other marquee industries — film — are also navigating choppy waters.
Giovanna Urbina, an IATSE Local 480 member who works on art and set design for film productions, told Heinrich that a couple of years ago, there were 10 to 15 union productions actively filming across New Mexico at any given moment.
Today, she said, there’s one.
“It is a big industry and we have seen it all but disappear in New Mexico,” she said, adding that she’s seen a number of productions stay in Los Angeles, in large part because increased gas prices have made it more costly to book planes and rental cars for cast and crew members.
After the event, Heinrich told reporters that, in Washington, D.C., he would advocate for policies that “actually support small business and working families.”
“This administration, when they create new tariffs, all those costs get passed along to working people,” he said. “These are the people who pay the price — the small businessperson, the single mom trying to raise her kids.”