TUPELO, Miss. — This city is most famous for birthing the King of Rock-n-Roll.
"Welcome to Elvis Presley's birth house," says docent Carolyn Parson, as you step inside a tiny two-room shotgun house on the east side of town.
"It means that if you open the front door and you open the back door, you could theoretically or literally shoot a shotgun clean through the house," she explains. "And Elvis was born in this room."
The site is a museum, drawing more than 100,000 visitors a year. But for every tourist you see in a downtown Tupelo hotel, you're also likely to bump into European business leaders.
"Most of us just think of Elvis — which is not a bad thing — but there's so much more," says David Rumbarger, CEO of the Community Development Foundation, an economic development group in Tupelo.
He drives to a sprawling industrial park on the outskirts of town, pointing out companies that make everything from automobile seats, to box springs, to blue jeans.
"This also has a number of our international companies, something that we've really focused on over the last 25 years," he says.
The biggest international plant here is Toyota, which has been assembling Corollas in northeast Mississippi since 2011. More international firms followed, resulting in a much-needed economic revival for Tupelo.
The once-dominant furniture industry here all but disappeared in the 1990s due to competition from China. Rumbarger says they lost more than 30,000 jobs at the time.
Now with a more diverse mix, one in five jobs is in manufacturing. The question is whether Trump's plan for higher tariffs will shake things up.
"You know business likes a stable environment, so uncertainty does cause a little bit of pain," says Rumbarger.
He says most companies, including Toyota, are now considering the cost of sourcing the parts they get from overseas, and figuring out how to be resilient in a rapidly shifting environment.
"Most of the people I talk to in and out of business are in awe of the speed and in the scope of what's happening and wonder 'when's the dividend?'" he says. "Where is the tax dividend or where is the deficit-reduction dividend? When does that come around?"
He says the focus should be on increasing the profitability of U.S. firms that compete internationally.
"If you don't think a company's competing internationally, if you think we're just selling to the U.S. that's wrong," says Rumbarger.
So being agile in political upheaval is key. Rumbarger says he's been fielding questions from a German-Swiss equipment maker planning to locate a logistics center in Tupelo. They're wondering how Germany's newly-elected government will respond to Trump's policies.
It's too soon to know how the local economy will fare in the second Trump administration. But in this conservative county where Trump got nearly 70% of the vote, industry leaders say they anticipate a stronger business climate.
"We're as busy as I've ever been," says Bryan Hawkins, CEO of Hawkeye Industries, which has been making custom sheet metal parts in Tupelo for 30 years. His wife and three sons are part of the operation.
He's proud to show off the plant, where million-dollar-plus machinery cuts sheets of metal into parts for air-conditioning units, elevator components, and other precision parts.
"It's just so much fun to watch," he says. "I can cut anything from as thin as your hair to up to one inch thick."
These metal sheets will likely get more expensive with President Trump's tariff plan.
"I look at that like taxes," says Hawkins. "Everybody's got to pay it, you know, so just get used to it."
It's a cost he'll pass on to his customers and ultimately consumers will pay. But he doesn't think the pain will last, because he believes the tariffs will be short-lived.
"I don't believe the tariffs are an economic tool. I believe they are a political tool," says Hawkins. "As the investment in new plants and equipment comes into the United States, which is what the intent is, I think we'll all be fine. And in the long run we're going to be a lot better off."
Hawkins, a former chairman of the Mississippi Manufacturers Association, says his biggest concern is that the country's education system is not keeping up to prepare the workforce. He's also active in a foundation that seeks to get students engaged in manufacturing.
As for the pace of changes coming from the White House? He's supportive.
"Mr. Trump is a businessman and he knows how to make deals and his track record has shown it," he says. "You know, he's stirring the pot."
GOP voter Candace Hunt agrees.
"I feel encouraged by what he's going to do for our economy and just our country as a whole," says Hunt, who is active with the Mississippi Federation of Republican Women. "Just bringing industry back to America, you know, keeping us safe."
"I think it's a breath of fresh air," says Tupelo's Republican Mayor Todd Jordan. He's a former pro football player in his first term as mayor of this city of just under 40,000 people.
He's watching to see what happens next, saying it's unclear how Trump's policies will affect the city.
"I think everybody is very optimistic that it's going to be a better four years," says Jordan.
There was an early glitch when two federal grants for railroad upgrades were frozen. But Jordan says the money freed up within a few days.
He says it doesn't hurt that U.S. Senator Roger Wicker is from Tupelo — the latest in a long line of powerful Mississippi senators known for bringing federal largesse home. Federal dollars make up about 45% of the state's revenue according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Local defense contractor Hyperion Technology says it's not had any disruptions thus far in the new administration. The company builds acoustic threat detection sensors for the military and for law enforcement.
Founder Gerald Godbold says it's hard to know how changes in government contracting or trade policy might play out, but he's keeping a positive outlook.
"Wherever there's big change, correspondingly, there's big opportunity."
Tariffs mean higher costs for the electronic components they use. But he says supply chain issues worry him more.
"We support the national interest of making our supply chain more resilient and, if possible, bringing as much of that manufacturing back to the United States or to our friends and allies as possible," Godbold says. "I think that's just in America's best interest."
Back at Elvis's birthplace, visitors are stocking up on souvenirs in the gift shop.
"We have Elvis socks, Elvis totes, Elvis backbacks, of course Elvis caps, Elvis cups," says museum director Roy Turner.
"The tariffs are going to have an impact on us," he says, noting that nearly all of the merchandise comes from China. "So that may force us at some point to up our prices."
Still, he's hesitant to be too critical of President Trump's policies.
"The best thing I can say is I live in Trump land, and I'm not a Trumper," Turner says. "That's not popular here. To keep peace in the family and the neighborhood, I just keep that to myself," he says with a chuckle.
Turner says he worries about unintended consequences of an America First agenda. But he knows many in his hometown are all-in.
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