Back in February, when President Trump announced sweeping tariffs at both the Canadian and Mexican borders, “Marketplace” reporter and host Kristin Schwab looked at how small businesses were coping with the uncertainty and the new costs. Among the people she spoke with was Daniella Velazquez de León, a general manager at Organics Unlimited, a banana grower and wholesaler based in San Diego. Since the business imports most of its supply from Mexico, the proposed 25% tariff was going to hit hard.

And then, most of the promised tariffs against Mexico and Canada were rolled back, but only temporarily. Tariffs are currently set to resume on April 2.

Velazquez de León rejoined Kristin Schwab to catch up ahead of that deadline. A transcript of their conversation is below.

Kristin Schwab: Give me an update. How has business been?

Daniella Velazquez de León: I mean, for the most part, we’ve been having a good year so far. What’s scary is all of the uncertainty around tariffs. Everything could change from one day to the next, and it’s just been a lot of whiplash from February to March and now April.

Schwab: We talked, I think, last in February when tariffs were on the horizon and you were figuring out what to do. And then a lot happened after that. On March 4, the Trump administration enacted a 25% tariff on products coming in from Canada and Mexico. And then March 6, just two days later, he rolled those back. Before we get to the now, can you tell me what those 48 hours were like if you can remember?

Velazquez de León: They were pretty horrible. We had prepared for it as best we could, but there’s very little guidance. We were talking to our customs brokers, our Customs Brokers were talking to CBP, and even CBP didn’t have clear direction on how to handle this. And in those two days alone, we paid over $14,000 in tariffs.

Schwab: Wow. And then, just like that, they kind of temporarily went away. Does that mean your sort of chaos went away? Or what’s been happening for the last month or so?

Velazquez de León: It feels like it’s been psychological torture. For the last couple months, we’ve done as much preparing as we can, and even just the costs of preparing have been crazy. I mean, we’re a small business. We got an invoice from our legal team for almost $40,000 just in guidance for how to approach these tariffs. And even so, we didn’t have a concrete, clear direction of “this is exactly how you should be managing this, how you should be doing the valuation.” And so it feels like the fate of our future is in the hands of the president and what he decides this week.

Schwab: Well, these tariffs are meant to be back on in just a couple days. What does that mean for you?

Velazquez de León: I mean, we’re trying to stay optimistic. I’m hopeful that we’re going to come together and figure out a way to survive and get through to the other side. But if I’m more realistic than optimistic, that seems very difficult if these tariffs do go into place all the way.

Schwab: What are you hearing from the grower side, from these farmers?

Velazquez de León: They’re very concerned, all of these growers that we’ve been working with for generations. My great-grandfather was a banana grower. It’s a whole region that depends on this commodity to survive and to thrive, and, if these tariffs go into place, that could completely destroy the whole economy in that region. And at retail stores, it’s pretty much forbidden to go anywhere above the 99 cent mark for organic bananas. So growers know that. Again, it’s make it or break it for their businesses and their communities.

Schwab: You know, you just talked about being a fourth-generation member of your family to work at this company. What comes up when you think about this time and what it means for the future of your business?

Velazquez de León: It makes me a little emotional because it’s my family’s legacy, and it’s what we’ve dedicated our lives to. It’s our story. And we’ve made a name for ourselves in the industry and also in our growing communities, so it’s not just our businesses, our employees, our customers, on the line. It’s also all of these programs that we’ve dedicated this business to on the line. So honestly, it’s kind of an emotional roller coaster these past few months and going into this week.