“This is a fucking disaster”: Generational Republican family loses 95-year-old mill to Trump’s tariff mess

For years, Mackeys Ferry Sawmill in North Carolina depended on overseas buyers in China and Vietnam after domestic demand for premium hardwood declined. But when President Donald Trump launched his escalating trade war, the mill’s owners say the damage was immediate and ultimately irreversible. By July—just months after Trump declared his “Liberation Day” tariffs—they made the decision to shut the operation down entirely.

In a recent episode of the Big Take podcast, Bloomberg economics correspondent Shawn Donnan traveled to the “Old North State” to trace how one of America’s oldest trades was shaken by Trump’s tariff battles, and to hear how the mill’s owners now feel about the president they once supported at the ballot box.

Inside the J.W. Jones Lumber Company, co-owner Wilson Jones warns visitors to watch their step as the noise of constant milling fills the space. The mill, located in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, still runs full steam—from stripping bark to trimming boards in kilns—turning raw logs into finished lumber for visible household uses like stair treads and baseboards. Donnan and producer Rachael Lewis-Krisky went there to spend time with the Jones family, who have been in this business since the late 19th century.

The family’s second mill, Mackeys Ferry, was not so fortunate. Once a busy hardwood facility, the site now sits in quiet disrepair. For Wilson, the silence feels foreign and unsettling.

“I’ve grown all my life in the lumber business. And to hear nature at a sawmill, I think for any lumberman is not natural,” he said. “I don’t wanna be overly dramatic, but in a way it’s as unnerving as watching a loved one take their final breath.”

On July 1, Wilson and his brother Stephen officially closed Mackeys Ferry. The breaking point, they say, was President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.

“When I say Liberation Day, I cannot put enough snark and sarcasm in my voice because we weren’t liberated,” Wilson said. The mill has been “mothballed,” but the 50 workers who depended on it were laid off. His frustration is plain: “Liberation Day… it did, at the time, it had damn near liberated me from our business. And in essence, it has. I’m bitter about that.”

Trump’s taxes on imports sparked swift retaliation, including from China, which had long been the primary buyer of the mill’s hardwood. Until recently, 70%–80% of Mackeys Ferry’s output went to China and Vietnam. When exporting suddenly became financially impossible, the brothers shut production down. In one stroke, they lost a third of their entire business revenue.

Donnan notes that this is not just the story of a single sawmill. It is one snapshot of the shock Trump’s tariff agenda delivered across rural America. Between April and August, even as Trump promised a “manufacturing renaissance,” the country actually shed 42,000 manufacturing jobs.

The Jones brothers come from a long line of lumbermen going back nearly 150 years. Wilson’s childhood memories—sawdust, games among wood shavings, the scar his brother Stephen gave him with a pitchfork—are tied to the mills. But the industry has declined for decades as consumer tastes shifted to cheaper products made from particleboard, MDF and laminate. Wilson is blunt about the government’s role in making their situation worse.

“I don’t have a problem with changing consumer tastes… I have a problem with the government policy making us obsolete,” he said.

Mackeys Ferry survived other industry shifts by relying on exports. By 2017, China was the dominant market for U.S. hardwood, and the Joneses successfully navigated earlier rounds of Trump’s tariffs by splitting the financial burden with their customers. But Trump’s later escalations went far beyond the first round. On April 2, the White House imposed a steep 34% tariff on Chinese imports. China responded in kind—hitting U.S. hardwood with duties that spiked as high as 125%.

Wilson could not withstand the blow. “They put the final nails in the coffin,” he said.

At one point, a $500,000 shipment of Mackeys Ferry lumber was already en route to China when Trump’s new tariffs took effect. Within days, those tariffs exceeded the value of the wood itself.

Asked what he would tell the president if Trump stood in his sawmill, Wilson didn’t hide his frustration.

“I’d like to say, What the heck? Actually, I’d like to say about nine different explanatives,” he said. “But… President Trump, gee, I understand what you’re trying to do, but you’re on a fool’s mission. And you’re not helping out a few. You’re hurting a lot.”

The White House declined to comment on the closure.

When asked whether they had voted for Trump, both brothers admitted they had—Wilson, all three times. He said the decision felt “disgusting,” and he regrets supporting Trump’s trade agenda, which he now sees as directly responsible for shutting down one of his family’s businesses.

Local officials say the community will feel the mill’s closure for years. It was one of the county’s largest private employers, and although the economics department has not yet calculated the tax losses, leaders expect a significant blow to the regional economy. The area never fully recovered from losing two hundred jobs in a separate mill consolidation nearly twenty years ago.

Meanwhile, the broader legality of the tariffs is still being debated. Lower courts have already ruled them illegal, and the Supreme Court recently heard arguments that could determine whether any restitution is possible. But for the Jones brothers, Donnan says, it is already too late—the damage is done.

Tariffs throughout history have often produced outcomes no president intended. Trump claimed he sought to rebalance trade and bring back manufacturing. Instead, his actions sparked retaliation and inflicted economic pain on rural communities like those in North Carolina.

Wilson expressed deep regret about parts of his vote. “There are some things I regret about voting for President Trump? Yes, a hundred percent. Trade policy is one of them… I wish it hadn’t have turned out that way.” Even so, he said given the choices on the ballot, he still would have voted for Trump—reflecting a dilemma felt by many in rural America.

The last load of lumber came off Mackeys Ferry’s line on September 29. Just ten of the original fifty workers accepted positions at the family’s other mill. Walking through the shuttered operation, Wilson motioned toward the remaining stacks of wood.

“This is kind of the last of it,” he said, surrounded by dust and silence where machines once roared. The loss, he admits, is personal.

“And then the other thing is, is, you are just going to stand around, make yourself miserable, pull your head outta your rear and try to, you know, make a difference where you can make a difference. Quit feeling sorry for yourself,” he said. But Donnan describes the emotional weight as unmistakable—the end of a family legacy tied up in national politics far beyond their control.