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A small U.S. town grew a big company. Can it weather the tariff blizzard?


A rural Minnesota town is home to the biggest tech giant you've never heard of. Now it's riding out an unprecedented kind of storm.

DigiKey is one of the world's largest marketplaces for electronic components, shipping global orders from a single warehouse in Thief River Falls, Minn. Dan Koeck for NPR hide caption toggle caption Dan Koeck for NPR The roads approaching DigiKey are dotted with severe signage from U.S. Customs and Border Protection: "WARNING: Vehicle is subject to search." toggle caption Dan Koeck for NPR The DigiKey warehouse is not the town's tallest building — that's the grain elevator by the train track, with flocks of pigeons kiting overhead — but it is the largest.

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