The Minnesota Star Tribune reports on what companies are anticipating the impact of tariffs on business…

Minnesota companies were assessing the damage Tuesday of the nascent trade war between the United States and its three biggest trade partners, an escalating tit-for-tat that could affect billions of dollars in state imports and exports.

From Canadian oil to Chinese electronics to Mexican fruit, Minnesota relies on more than $20 billion in foreign trade each year for goods the state doesn’t — or can’t — produce. Though U.S. tariffs are a tax on these foreign imports, they will also affect Minnesota exports as production costs rise for local goods made with foreign materials and countries retaliate with tariffs of their own.

They use a broadband equipment manufacturer as an example, which is a glimpse of what might happen in broadband…

Brooklyn Park-based Clearfield, which produces broadband equipment, has facilities in the United States, Mexico and Finland as well as sourcing relationships throughout Asia. Some products — including an essential plastic cassette the company produces in the U.S., Mexico and China to ensure availability — cross the border multiple times during the assembly process and will pick up a tariff with each crossing.

Electrical equipment, machinery and parts is one of Minnesota’s top non-agriculture export categories. Most products contain at least some foreign-made components, with many relying on Canada and Mexico, according to an Economic Policy Institute Analysis of USITC Dataweb data.

“Nothing is 100% made in America. We live in a globally integrated economy,” said Adam Hersh, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “Global supply chains are integrated. They’re assembling components from all over the world into final products. So when the import tariffs raise the cost of production of those intermediate parts, then the final goods may also increase in cost.”

Clearfield will consider its products to figure out whether it’s more cost-effective to move production here or weather tariffs, Beranek said.

“We will be reviewing how much of that we could absorb and how much of that we will need to pass along to our customer base,” she said. “But there will be an increase to customers at some point in time.”