POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - In most corners of America, Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer.

It also marks the beginning of fireworks season, which should be a boom for businesses like Big Grin Fireworks and owner Paul Richardson.

And yet, his mind is half a world away.

“100% of our fireworks, unfortunately, come from China,” Richardson said.

Whipsawing tariffs and erratic American foreign policy have businesses of all types on edge. For fireworks, it’s an industry already beset with major regulations.

“It’s a myriad of restrictions just to get to the business,” Richardson said, who operates numerous stores in North Georgia.

The U.S.A. places heavy regulations on the quality of imported fireworks, which is why nearly all major fireworks come from China in huge, bulk orders.

In a world of just-in-time logistics, the fireworks supply chain is downright archaic. In order to get a container shipped for the summer, the order needs to be in by fall, usually September or October. That order might not reach the West Coast until May or April, and then it might take another month to make a reverse engineer a Steinbeck novel to Georgia.

But with tariffs, be they 30% or 145%, Richardson doesn’t get hit with the total cost until his fireworks containers hit ports in the spring. The whipsawing, meaning the cost could be one thing when the shipment leaves China and another when it hits the U.S.A. In that world, the current 90-day reprieve means little.

“It’s impossible with fireworks to build, buy, ship, and receive in 90-day windows,” Richardson said.

So, he’s left with a few options. He can “eat” the tariff at whatever the number is when the product reaches America, pass it on to the consumer, or just cancel orders.

“Your option is to sell out everything you have in stock now,” he said, “Because you can not buy that product and sell it.”

That creates what’s called “scarcity”. Fireworks dealers sell what they have in stock, and that’s it. Meaning supply inevitably gets outpaced by demand.

“If you shop on the second or the first of July, you’ll probably be ok,” Richardson explained. “But if you wait until the 4th like most people do, you might find bare shelves.”

At the current scaled-back tariff rate of 30%, Richardson says the industry can survive, albeit on lower margins. If tariffs go any higher, the foundation will shake.

“The entire industry will crumble,” he said. “There won’t be a consumer fireworks industry, other than sparklers.”

If the problems last much longer, it will affect inventory for the winter holidays and next summer. Richardson is already plotting how to keep items on the shelves for New Year’s Eve and America’s 250th birthday.

“People churned it like, ok, we can deal with our pricing, take less margin, get through this year and see what happens in July,” he said.

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