Trump tariffs hurting NC businesses, Roy Cooper says on campaign trail in Charlotte
The Trump administration’s tariffs are putting small businesses at risk, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said at a campaign stop in Charlotte on Friday.
The Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, who was joined at Friday’s event by Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, officially filed to be on the 2026 ballot Wednesday. He’s expected to face former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley next year for the seat to be vacated by the retiring Sen. Thom Tillis.
Cooper and Warnock visited two west Charlotte businesses, Archive CLT and Mackins Bridal Boutique, to talk about the impacts of the Trump administration’s trade policies on small businesses.
Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has instituted or threatened tariffs — taxes charged on goods bought from other countries — on a variety of products from countries including India, China, Mexico and Canada. Lawsuits filed in court question of whether Trump is usurping Congressional powers, and he has rolled back some tariffs on food products.
Inside the cafe at Archive CLT, Cooper said the owners he met with told him local businesses are dealing with higher costs for their supplies due to “chaotic, indiscriminate tariffs,” and having to raise their own prices to keep up with the added expenses.
Cooper also criticized the end of health care subsidies tied to the insurance marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act while touting the Medicaid expansion launched during his time as governor. The end of the subsidies is expected to dramatically raise insurance prices for many people next year.
“We knew that not only does health care matter to everyday families, but also matters to our economy,” he said.
Cooper said Whatley has supported Trump’s tariffs and that the GOP candidate “is going to do whatever this president tells him to do.”
“I want to be an independent senator who can work with the president when I can, stand up to him when I need to, stand up to my own party when I need to,” Cooper said.
Speaking at an April event when he was still RNC chair, Whatley said Trump’s trade policies were part of an “overall strategy to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.” and that the stock market had an “overreaction” to the tariffs, NC Newsline reported.
Whatley said after formally filing for the Senate race Tuesday he’s endorsed by Trump and “recruited into this race by the president.”
“No. 1 is absolutely going to be making sure that we have an economy that works for everybody in North Carolina,” he said Tuesday of his campaign priorities. “We need to create jobs, we need to raise wages. We need to make sure that we have trade policies, tax policies, regulatory policies that are going to help our small businesses, our manufacturers and our farmers.”
The Charlotte Observer has contacted Whatley’s campaign for a specific response to Cooper’s comments.
Warnock said Cooper’s campaign is critical to Democrat’s hopes for gaining a majority in the Senate next year. Republicans currently hold a 53-seat majority in the chamber. Political experts expect the GOP to retain many of its seats in 2026, but Democrats are hoping to capitalize on recent special election victories and the headwinds typically faced by the president’s political party in mid-term elections.
North Carolina is considered a swing state, having elected Democratic governors for three straight terms while breaking for Trump and Republican Senate candidates in other statewide races. The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics currently rates the state’s 2026 Senate race as a “toss up.”
“If we had the majority, Congress could fix this right now no matter what the president wants to do. The founders put this in the hands of the Congress, but they made a decision, the party that’s in the majority, to just hand that over,” Warnock said of Trump’s trade policies. “And so the road to fixing this is a majority that we can gain, and that road goes straight through North Carolina.”
Recent polls show Cooper leading Whatley. A mid-November Carolina Journal-Harper Polling survey showed Cooper up by 8.7 points.
Primary elections are scheduled for March 3, and the 2026 general election is Nov. 3.
This story was originally published December 5, 2025 at 3:08 PM.
