I import steel parts from China. Trump's tariffs won't stop me — it's still cheaper and easier.

• Mike King runs a micro-market business for which he sources steel components from China.
• He says that Trump's steel tariffs don't make sourcing in the US more attractive for him.
• He believes it's still cheaper — and much easier — to source from China.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mike King, who runs a suite of vending machines as well as Moneta Market, a full-service micro-market company based in Salt Lake City. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I started out with gumball machines. I was in college serving tables, when I read an e-book online, and started buying them for about $50 a pop.

Then I met a guy who was selling full-size snack and soda machines and he was kind of laughing at me: "Why are you messing around with all that small money?" he said. "If you're going to do it, do it for real." So I decided to go all in on vending, and built that up.

Then I learned how to do micro-markets, and realized the profit was better.

A micro-market is a small, unstaffed shop where people can just grab things, pay, and go. Our point-of-sale systems are housed in steel boxes that we manufacture in China.

We run about 350 of them now.

It's not realistic for me to buy them in the US

Four years ago, when we started making these boxes, my initial impulse was to see if we can make them down the road, or in manufacturing hubs like Detroit.

Overwhelmingly, it was difficult to communicate with and deal with any American company that we reached out to. So I went with Chinese manufacturers.

In February and March, Trump announced that the US was implementing 25% tariffs on any steel, plus a total of 20% on anything from China.

We already had a 25% tariff on Chinese steel, so I'm sitting there thinking, "Well, does that mean I could have a 70% tariff if I order steel from China?"

I started doing the math. To actually deter me from ordering from China at this point, the tariffs would still have to be quite a lot more.

I'm buying my boxes at about $250, and a 70% tariff would add another $175, making them $425. Once it's shipped and through customs, it'd be about $825 per box.

In the US, I might be able to do all that for $1,000-$1,200.

Even if the price in China got to be a few hundred dollars more, I'm probably still ordering from China, just because it's so much easier.

China just geared up better for this

I think that once China realized that they were going to be the manufacturer for the world, they embraced that wholeheartedly and built an entire infrastructure around it.

I just don't see how America can compete at all with what China has built.

My box needs to be powder coated, and that also needs custom foam packaging around it, and a custom box made for it.

When I send a job to a metal factory, they're making the box and then they're putting it on a truck and shipping it down the road to a place that's powder-coating it. Then they're sending to a place making custom Styrofoam boxes, and then shipping it to a place with cardboard boxes made that fit perfectly. Then someone's shipping it down to the boat yard to get it to me.

All of those logistics are part of the price, and I don't have to think about any of it.

I might find a place in Fresno that's willing to make my metal boxes for a reasonable price, but there are so many more headaches.

In China, when they encountered a design issue, they scratched their heads for a bit — and within a week, had proposed tweaks. When companies in the US saw my designs, they threw up so many roadblocks and would have charged so much more to adapt them.

A US maker is also likely not going to powder coat the boxes, or package them, so that becomes my job to organize.

In the end, the tariffs will likely just add some costs to my business.

But it's a logistical nightmare to try to get something like what I'm trying to do done in America.