Nika Cristiani Joins Chris Cuomo on SiriusXM to Discuss the Reality Facing American Small Businesses
Dear GYM IN A BOX® Community,
This Thursday, our founder Nika Cristiani will be joining our favorite Celebrity Brand AmbassadorChris Cuomo on CUOMO MORNINGS on SiriusXM POTUS Politics to discuss an issue that affects millions of entrepreneurs across America.
From the pandemic to tariffs to global conflicts, small businesses have been navigating one economic shock after another. Rising costs, supply chain disruptions, and economic uncertainty continue to challenge the innovators and creators who keep this country moving forward.
During the conversation, Nika will share firsthand insights from building GYM IN A BOX® L.A. — and why the struggles of American small businesses must become part of the national conversation.
Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy.
And their voices deserve to be heard.
Tune in live
📅 Thursday – March 12
⏰ 8:30 AM ET / 5:30 AM PST
🎧 Listen live:
https://siriusxm.com/player/show/entity/7dbb75a5-f3f3-2ef2-c403-c6580191f559?utm_medium=shared
In today’s unpredictable economic climate, small businesses across the United States are navigating a series of unprecedented challenges. From the aftermath of the pandemic to tariffs, supply-chain disruptions, rising operational costs, and global instability, entrepreneurs are working harder than ever just to maintain momentum.
This Thursday, Nika Cristiani, founder and CEO of GYM IN A BOX® L.A., will join Chris Cuomo on CUOMO MORNINGS on SiriusXM POTUS Politics to discuss the reality many American entrepreneurs are facing today.
The conversation will focus on how economic shocks — from global conflicts to supply-chain chaos and inflation — continue to affect innovators and small companies trying to build and grow in the United States.
Why This Conversation Matters
Small businesses are widely recognized as the backbone of the American economy. Yet the pressures they face often remain underrepresented in national conversations.
Entrepreneurs are navigating:
- Rising manufacturing and logistics costs
- Supply-chain disruptions and delays
- Unpredictable trade policies and tariffs
- Economic uncertainty impacting consumer spending
For companies like GYM IN A BOX®, a Beverly Hills–based wellness and wearable fitness technology brand powered by patented ToneUp15® StimFit Technology, the challenge has been maintaining innovation while navigating constant economic turbulence.
Despite these obstacles, innovation continues.
A Founder’s Perspective
As the creator of GYM IN A BOX®, Nika Cristiani has built a brand centered around wearable fitness, beauty, and wellness technology designed to fit modern lifestyles. The company’s mission is simple: help people integrate strength, wellness, and recovery into everyday life through accessible, science-driven technology.
But behind every innovation is the reality that entrepreneurs must navigate the same global forces shaping the broader economy.
During the interview, Cristiani will share firsthand insight into what it takes to build and grow a business in an era defined by disruption — and why supporting American small businesses has never been more important.Nika Cristiani will appear on CUOMO MORNINGS with Chris Cuomo on SiriusXM.
Founders note:
“For almost a year, small businesses like mine paid massive tariffs on technology components — tariffs that were later ruled illegal.
The money hasn’t been returned.
Large corporations are already suing to recover their losses. Small businesses don’t have that luxury.
Now we’re dealing with global instability and a war economy on top of it.
So I ask a simple question:
What happened to “Fix America FIRST”?
By Nika, Creator of GYM IN A BOX®
For years Americans have been told that economic nationalism and aggressive tariff policies would strengthen American industry and protect small businesses. The slogan was simple: America First.
But for many entrepreneurs across the country, the reality has been very different.
I run a small American company called GYM IN A BOX®, where we design wearable fitness, wellness, and beauty technology. Like many modern technology companies, we develop our products in the United States but rely on specialized global supply chains for certain electronic components that simply are not manufactured domestically.
That is the reality of modern innovation.
When tariffs were imposed on key imported components, the impact on small businesses was immediate and severe. Costs skyrocketed. In some cases, tariffs exceeded 100 percent on certain components necessary to build consumer technology products.
For a small company, that is not a minor inconvenience. That is a major financial shock.
Unlike large corporations, we don’t have the ability to instantly restructure supply chains or absorb massive cost increases indefinitely. Many small businesses, including ours, had to make a difficult decision: either dramatically increase prices for customers or absorb the costs ourselves and hope the situation stabilized.
For more than a year, we chose the latter. We absorbed those costs rather than pass them on to the people who support our brand.
Then came a major development.
The Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs in question were illegal.
For small businesses like ours, that ruling confirmed what many entrepreneurs had already suspected — that we had been forced to pay enormous sums of money under policies that ultimately did not stand up legally.
But here is where the story becomes even more troubling.
The money small businesses paid has not been returned.
Large multinational corporations are already pursuing legal action to recover those funds. They have entire legal departments and teams of attorneys dedicated to navigating complex litigation.
Small businesses do not.
Entrepreneurs are busy running their companies, paying employees, managing supply chains, and trying to survive in an increasingly volatile economic environment. Most small companies simply do not have the resources to launch expensive federal lawsuits on their own.
Now, while businesses are still trying to recover from the economic impact of those tariffs, the United States has entered another period of global instability as American forces conduct military strikes against Iran.
Whenever geopolitical conflict escalates, the consequences ripple through the entire global economy.
Energy markets react. Shipping costs rise. Insurance premiums for cargo increase. Customs inspections tighten. Delivery timelines stretch unpredictably.
For companies like ours that rely on international components, this creates immediate operational challenges.
At the same time, consumers understandably become more cautious with their spending. Businesses operating in the wellness, technology, and lifestyle sectors often see demand slow when economic uncertainty rises.
This creates a double squeeze for small businesses: rising operating costs combined with declining consumer spending.
And all of this comes on top of the lingering economic damage from the pandemic years, when countless small companies endured shutdowns, disrupted supply chains, and years of financial instability.
Which brings us back to a simple question:
What happened to “Fix America FIRST”?
If the goal was to strengthen American businesses, why are small companies still carrying the financial burden of tariffs that were later ruled illegal?
Why are large corporations the only ones with realistic paths to recover their losses?
And how are small businesses supposed to fight back when we don’t have the legal infrastructure that massive corporations take for granted?
These questions matter because small businesses are not a side note in the American economy. They are its backbone.
They create jobs. They drive innovation. They build new industries.
When policies impose illegal financial burdens on small businesses without a clear path to restitution, it undermines the very entrepreneurs who are supposed to power economic growth.
That is why we are currently connecting with other companies that were affected by these tariffs. The goal is to explore the possibility of a class-action lawsuit that would allow small businesses to collectively pursue restitution for funds that were taken under policies later ruled unlawful.
Because fairness in economic policy should not depend on whether a company has a billion-dollar legal department.
It should apply equally to the entrepreneurs who are building the next generation of American innovation.
Small businesses already face enormous risks. We survived pandemic shutdowns. We navigated supply chain chaos. We absorbed massive cost increases.
But if “America First” truly means supporting American businesses, then small companies deserve the same opportunity for justice and restitution that large corporations are now pursuing.
Until that happens, the question remains:
Was the promise to Fix America FIRST ever really meant for small businesses at all?
“From the pandemic to tariffs to the war, small businesses like GYM IN A BOX® are navigating one economic shock after another.”
How Illegal Tariffs, War, and Economic Chaos Are Crushing America’s Small Businesses
I’m Nika Cristiani, the creator of GYM IN A BOX®, a company that develops wearable fitness, wellness, and beauty technology. And what’s happening globally right now absolutely affects small businesses like ours in several ways.
The first thing to understand is that we operate in the consumer wellness space. Our products help people stay strong, active, and confident — something that’s actually incredibly important in stressful times — but they’re still considered discretionary purchases. When people feel uncertain about the economy or the future, those types of purchases are often the first ones consumers delay.
And honestly, that pressure on consumers didn’t start with the current geopolitical conflict. Americans were already facing financial strain from inflation, rising living costs, and the economic ripple effects of tariffs and supply chain disruptions. For businesses like ours that develop innovative wearable technology, those policies had a very real impact.
And interestingly, during difficult times people often realize how important their health actually is. Strength, energy, and resilience are not luxuries — they’re essential for navigating stressful periods.
So while global instability certainly makes running a small business more difficult, it also reinforces why companies like ours exist in the first place — to help people feel stronger and more resilient no matter what’s happening in the world.”
Let’s start with the reality small businesses are facing right now. The United States is bombing Iran and we’re effectively in a war scenario in the Middle East. Whenever that happens, the economic consequences ripple through the entire global economy — and small businesses feel those shocks first.
My company GYM IN A BOX develops wearable fitness, wellness, and beauty technology. We design our products here in the United States, but like most companies in the tech sector we rely on a global supply chain for specialized electronic components that simply are not manufactured domestically anymore.
When a war breaks out, shipping routes become unstable, cargo insurance rises, customs inspections tighten, and supply chains slow down dramatically. We’ve already experienced situations where essential parts sit in customs for months. For a technology company trying to build and ship products, that’s incredibly disruptive.
But what makes this situation even more frustrating is that small businesses like ours were already under enormous financial pressure before this war began.
For more than a year we were hit with extremely high tariffs on the components we need to build our technology. At times those tariffs exceeded 100 percent. That means we were paying double or more just to bring in the parts necessary to manufacture our products.
Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that those tariffs were illegal. But here’s the problem — small businesses like ours have not seen any of that money returned.
Large corporations are already pursuing legal action to recover those funds because they have entire legal departments dedicated to fighting these battles. Small businesses don’t have that luxury. We’re busy trying to run our companies, pay employees, and keep our operations alive.
For companies like ours, the money we paid in those tariffs wasn’t small change — it was significant capital that could have gone into hiring people, investing in innovation, or lowering prices for customers.
Instead, we had to absorb those costs ourselves for months because we didn’t want to pass the entire burden onto consumers.
“Small businesses don’t have armies of lawyers — but we still deserve fairness when policies cost us millions and are later ruled illegal.”
Now the geopolitical situation escalates into a war, global uncertainty increases, and the conversation shifts away from the tariffs entirely. But the financial damage to small businesses has already been done.
That’s why we’re currently trying to connect with other businesses that were affected in the same way. Our goal is to explore a potential class-action lawsuit so that small companies have a way to seek compensation for the tariffs that were collected and later ruled illegal.
Because if large corporations can fight for their rights through legal channels, small businesses should have the ability to do the same.
Entrepreneurs already carry enormous risk. We survived pandemic shutdowns, supply chain chaos, and rising costs. But when policies impose illegal financial burdens on small businesses and there’s no clear path for restitution, that becomes a serious issue for innovation and entrepreneurship in this country.
At the end of the day, small businesses drive a huge part of the American economy. If policies create instability or unfair financial pressure, it’s not just companies like mine that are affected — it’s jobs, innovation, and the broader economic ecosystem.
🌍 The world feels uncertain right now.
News cycles are chaotic. Stress is everywhere.
But one thing is still completely in your control:
Your strength. 💪
In times like these, it’s more important than ever to fix yourself first. ✨
Your health.
Your energy.
Your resilience.
Because when your body feels strong, your mind becomes stronger too. 🧠⚡
That’s exactly why I created GYM IN A BOX®.
Not another exhausting fitness trend.
Not another complicated routine.
The future of fitness is here.
🔥 ELITE BODY ACTIVATION
But wearable wellness technology you can simply put on, push a button, and let it activate your muscles while you live your life — whether you’re working, traveling, walking the dog, or relaxing at home. 🐕🏡
Powered by patented NextGen ToneUp15® StimFit Technology, our systems deliver what I call:
⚡ Elite Body Activation
In the GLP-1 era, people are finally realizing something important:
Losing weight is one thing…
But maintaining muscle is the real secret to staying strong, energized, and confident as we age.✨
Strength is the new anti-aging. 💫
So when the world feels uncertain, remember this:
Take care of you first.
Build your strength.
Protect your energy.
Stay powerful. 👑
Because when you feel good in your body, you can handle anything life throws at you.
GYM IN A BOX®
⚡ Elite Body Activation
At GYM IN A BOX®, we believe in a smarter way to stay strong, toned, and confident at every age.
Our wearable fitness and wellness technologies powered by patented ToneUp15® StimFit Technologyhelp support muscle activation, enhance performance, and promote recovery — in just minutes a day.
No complicated routines.
No wasted time.
Just intelligent body activation you can incorporate into your everyday life.”
Stay strong and hopeful!
Best, NIKA
Learn more and tune in
Thursday – March 12
🎧 Listen live:
https://siriusxm.com/player/show/entity/7dbb75a5-f3f3-2ef2-c403-c6580191f559?utm_medium=shared
8:30 AM ET / 5:30 AM PST
Thank you for supporting innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of American small business.
Nika Cristiani
CEO & Creator
GYM IN A BOX® L.A.
⚡ Elite Body Activation
www.gyminabox.la
