EXCLUSIVE: Javier Palomarez of the US Hispanic Business Council on Why Affordability Is the Central Challenge for Small Businesses in Trump's America

After more than two decades working at the intersection of business, policy, and advocacy, Javier Palomarez has learned to recognize economic stress before it shows up in official data — especially in moments like the current one. It appears first in tighter credit, thinner margins, and hesitation among business owners who no longer trust that next quarter will look better than the last.

Palomarez is the Founder and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC), an advocacy organization representing what he describes as "4.5 million Hispanic firms in this country that collectively contribute about $850 billion to the American economy." Those firms operate across industries — "manufacturing to agriculture to tech to financial services to construction" — and geographies.

"The difference is that unlike a Bank of America or an Exxon or a Google, we don't have armies of lobbyists in Washington D.C. working on our behalf," Palomarez told The Latin Times in an interview. "We don't have a division of tax experts that can help us maneuver through whatever tax legislation or regulatory issues come down the pipe. And so all we've got is us."

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That imbalance shaped how he describes 2025: a year dominated by uncertainty — first political, then economic. Palomarez is open about his voting history. "I'm a known Democrat. I voted Democrat all my life. I voted for Joe Biden," he said. But he separates personal allegiance from organizational responsibility. "The fact of the matter is, as a business organization, we had some differences of opinion with the previous administration, particularly as it related to the economy and the small business community."

Some of those disagreements centered on small businesses facing cost pressures. But today, Palomarez says the more immediate concern across the board is affordability. According to the organization's most recent survey, affordability now outweighs every other concern in the country, as nearly 70% (69.7%) selected cost of living as a top issue — more than double any other category — with similar responses across party lines.

Only 19% of respondents say their businesses are thriving, while 71% report they are either surviving or struggling. Nearly 10% described their situation as "impossible." More respondents say their economic outlook is getting worse (41.7%) than better (23.8%).

Affordability, as he defines it, is layered pressure: energy costs, interest rates, inflation that "is still not where we need it to be," and uncertainty around tariffs, which he says disproportionately punish small operators. Large corporations can negotiate directly with manufacturers, build inventory, and wait out disruption. But "if you are a small business, you don't have the bargaining power," he said. "You don't have an inventory built up. And you don't have the financial wherewithal to weather the storm."

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Access to credit has also tightened alongside those pressures. "The traditional banking structure has frozen up when it comes to the small business community," Palomarez said. "A year ago, you could call your bank... and on a phone call, you'd get a quarter of a million dollar financing." Today, he said, "that banker won't even call you back."

Together, he argues, these signals tend to appear at the ground level before they show up in national economic indicators — in delayed hiring, postponed investments, and growing caution about what the next quarter will bring.

That squeeze forces decisions with no clean outcome. "Do you let some of your people go?" he asked. "Do you pass the cost on to consumers when already Costco and Walmart are underselling you, or do you shut down your business?"

What makes the latest survey results especially striking, he added, is who the respondents are. "These are the very same people that voted for Donald Trump because they believed he would be better for the economy and better for their business."

That shift is visible in broader confidence measures as well. Palomarez said that during the election, roughly 70% of respondents believed Trump and Republicans would be better for the economy. In the most recent survey, that figure fell to 40 percent — a 30-point drop in less than a year.

Responsibility, however, is harder to assign. When questions turn from economics to immigration, Palomarez says partisan lines reassert themselves. "If you keep it just about the economy, then you see the shift," he said. "When you begin to factor immigration into it, you begin to see people's political ideology come through."

Even then, he argues immigration enforcement cannot be separated from economics — not because of ideology, but because fear disrupts labor and consumption before policy ever does. He described construction projects stalling because workers stayed home, and a flea market in South Texas where attendance collapsed from roughly 55,000 people over a weekend to about 5,000. "Not because anything had gone wrong," he said. "It was just the fear."

That dynamic, Palomarez believes, feeds into one of the most persistent misconceptions about Hispanic business owners — that they are small, informal, and unsophisticated. He pushed back by pointing to Hispanic-led companies operating at national and global scale across manufacturing, construction, infrastructure, and logistics.

He also points to fragmentation inside the broader Latino business community as a challenge. "Sometimes the Cubans don't work with the Mexicans, the Mexicans don't work with the Puerto Ricans," he said. "And what I'm trying to do is say, hey, we got to get past all of that."

The strategy he keeps returning to is not cultural but economic: speak with one voice, use data, and stay grounded in commercial reality. "It's not about emotion, it's not about anger," he said. "It's about being a smart business person."

For Palomarez, the stakes are straightforward. Small businesses create the majority of net new jobs in the country, yet operate with the least insulation from policy shock. Giving them a voice, he argues, is not advocacy for a demographic — it is a prerequisite for economic stability. "If you don't have a voice," he said, "you don't get a choice."

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