He Wanted Kids to Make Music With Bananas. Then Trump's Tariffs Hit.
WASHINGTON – Imagine your kids turning a simple bunch of bananas into a fully functional musical keyboard. That was the dream David Levi, an electrical engineer and entrepreneur, was about to bring to life with his new “Banan-a-Synth” kit.
But that dream, along with the future of his small business, is now on hold, caught in the crossfire of President Trump's economic policies.
Levi, who founded the educational company MicroKits in 2020 to create STEM learning tools, says he’s a victim of the very tariffs Trump claimed would protect American businesses. The oscillating sine wave often printed on Levi's T-shirts, representing the physics behind his electronic kits, has become an accidental symbol for the volatile, up-and-down nature of the trade war that has thrown his operations into chaos.
The consequences have been severe and immediate for his company. Levi has been forced to make a series of painful decisions just to stay afloat:
- Hike prices on his popular STEM kits, potentially putting them out of reach for many families.
- Slow down production, stalling the growth of his burgeoning enterprise.
- Indefinitely pause the launch of innovative new products, including the much-anticipated Banan-a-Synth.
And Levi is not alone. His story is a powerful snapshot of a much larger rebellion brewing across the country. Thousands of small business owners, who were told these tariffs would be their salvation, are now drowning in a sea of rising costs and crippling uncertainty. They argue that instead of helping, the policies are threatening their very existence.
Now, they are taking their fight to the highest level. In a stunning challenge to the administration, a coalition of small businesses is leading a legal charge that is set to be heard by the Supreme Court on November 5th. This monumental case pits Main Street entrepreneurs directly against the White House in a battle over the future of American commerce.
The central irony is impossible to ignore: a policy sold as a shield for American industry is now being sued by the very people it was designed to protect. The fate of countless businesses—and the simple, brilliant idea of a banana synthesizer—now hangs in the balance.
