For this camping chair company, changing tariffs are no day in the park
“In the last six months, the tariff rate on products like we make in Cambodia coming into the U.S. has gone from 0% to 49% to 10% to 36% to 19%,” said Ben Knepler of True Places.

On Wednesday, oral arguments are set in the Supreme Court over a subset of the Trump administration's import taxes, which are dubbed "reciprocal tariffs." Whichever way the dice fall, businesses are still grappling with a new — and constantly evolving — tariff policy.
True Places is a Pennsylvania-based business with a global supply chain that makes folding camping chairs — ones that are pricier (but definitely nicer) than most, like for camping or tailgating. Co-founder Ben Knepler recently spoke with “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio. The following is an edited transcript of theri conversation.
David Brancaccio: So, look, there was a long stretch some years ago where a U.S.-based company could set up a supply chain somewhere in the world and set it and forget it. Like, you could have that relationship for years. You've had to, I think, refine your supply chain, what, quite a bit in recent years?
Ben Knepler: When we started the company, the entire category of this kind of product is all made in Asia, primarily in China. From the beginning, we were trying to figure out alternatives to that. Last year, we finally found a viable alternative in Cambodia, so outside of China. It took us about a year to move and transition our manufacturing from China to Cambodia. And then, yeah, we've been getting hit with a lot more tariffs again this year.
Brancaccio: Yeah, with the shifting tariff landscape — Cambodia, there's a tariff that is now a lot higher than it was at start the year, right?
Knepler: In the last six months, the tariff rate on products like we make in Cambodia, coming into the U.S. has gone from 0% to 49% to 10% to 36% to 19%, plus all kinds of other threats and other tariffs. So, it's really impossible to plan when you've got no idea what that's going to look like tomorrow.
Brancaccio: Ben, would you manufacture in, for instance, Pennsylvania, in the United States? If the numbers worked out? Shorter supply chains would minimize the risk.
Knepler: Of course, if we could, we would, but the manufacturing for our category of products just doesn't even exist in the U.S. So we'd have to create all of these interconnected supply chains that don't currently exist. If they did exist, the cost would be orders of magnitude higher.
Brancaccio: And be clear, you have U.S. employees. It's just they're not actually making the chairs.
Knepler: That's the irony of this situation is that we're a U.S. company. We do pretty much everything in the U.S., except for just the manufacturing and assembling of our chairs. You know, if we go out of business, then all of those other businesses that we do — those other functions within the U.S. — also get hit.
Brancaccio: Are you watching this Supreme Court case at all? Because it's a chance, right, that some of these tariffs are ruled illegal, and the numbers change again?
Knepler: I think the general feeling, speaking to other business owners and other founders and others in the industry is that even if it's ruled illegal in this case, this administration will find other ways to get to the similar kind of outcome. We've seen over the past few months the exact rules and the tariff rates change on an almost daily basis, and so this court case feels consequential on the one hand, but it also feels just like another change that we don't know where it's ultimately going to end up or just continue changing over time.


