At Brew Tea Bar, sales are down 20% to 30% from last year, founder Sou Ngo said. The boba business, which began in 2015 and has grown to five locations, is also paying more for imported ingredients and packaging. Ngo said the price of plastic cups sourced from China rose from 10 cents to 35 cents this year, while matcha from Japan now costs twice as much as it did before.

Ngo has raised prices twice since President Donald Trump began his second term in January 2025. A regular tea now costs about $1 more, he said, but the owners are trying to keep prices competitive and have chosen not to replace workers with touchscreen ordering kiosks.

Las Vegas’ dependence on tourism leaves local businesses especially exposed to changes in visitor spending, said Frank Fossen, an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. International visitors tend to spend more, he said, and visits to Las Vegas from abroad fell 4.8% in 2025, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Travel from Canada, the city’s largest foreign market, dropped 17.4% from 2024.

The decline coincided with trade tensions and Trump’s comments about making Canada the “51st state.” The administration has imposed a 10% global tariff, a 25% tariff on many goods from Canada and Mexico, and changing tariffs on Chinese imports. Fossen said tariffs and other factors have contributed to a decline in the United States’ reputation among some international visitors.

The pressure is showing up in business closures. RestaurantData estimated that 78 independently owned restaurants in Clark County closed during the first half of 2026. Ngo said he has heard of two more boba shops shutting down, while restaurant owner John Simmons said his business, Firefly Tapas Kitchen and Bar, cut staff after sales fell 15% last year and is operating at a loss this year.

Higher fuel costs are adding to the strain. Ricardo Corral, owner of Best Landscape LLC, said at a recent roundtable with U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto that fuel expenses had climbed from $400 to $600 per vehicle each week. He said he has sometimes accepted break-even work to keep employees on the job. The national average for gasoline was $4.33 a gallon on Monday, about $1.30 higher than a year earlier, according to AAA.

Thin profit margins leave little room to absorb higher expenses, Fossen said. Juanny Romero, CEO of Mothership Coffee Roasters, said her company operates on margins of about 5%. A 12-ounce vanilla latte there costs $7, up from $5.25 four years ago, a period that began before the current tariffs.

Fossen said the peak in closures may have passed if conditions stabilize, but warned that more shutdowns could harm nearby businesses by reducing the number of destinations drawing customers. For owners, uncertainty also makes it harder to plan investments or take on new costs. “I can’t even imagine what the next few months are going to look like,” Ngo said.