Trump Tariff Uncertainty Puts Businesses in a Bind

The Trump tariffs are on; then they’re postponed for a month. They’re 10%. Or they’re 25%. Or even 40%, maybe. They could be restricted to certain goods, or they could be on everything. Legal challenges abound. An announcement is coming, later this week. Perhaps. One day, the USPS is ceasing delivery of all packages from China; the next, they’re delivering them again. 

Some argue, or hope, that U.S. President Trump is simply using threats of injurious trade penalties in order to win smaller, different concessions from target countries or regions. 

Others see a far more dramatic agenda at play — a degree of economic isolationism, achieved solely via presidential fiat, that’s not been pursued by the U.S. for centuries. 

Trump has said he wants to usher in an American manufacturing renaissance through the introduction of wide-ranging tariffs and tax breaks. His proposed tariffs on imports from China, Mexico, Canada, quite possibly the European Union, the U.K. and others, could have an enormous effect. America imported $3.3 trillion worth of goods in 2024. At a low-ball 10% rate across the board, that’s a potential $330 billion tax on businesses and consumers. The tariff charges could exceed profits for some companies, according to an analyst at PwC. 

Read More: Threatened U.S. Tariffs Could Wipe Out Company Profits: PwC

But while we wait to see which tariffs, if any, actually come into effect, the uncertainty of it all is putting businesses in a bind.

“As a business, you make big investments in factories based on trade agreements,” says Randy Carr, CEO of Florida-based World Emblem, which has 1 million square feet of manufacturing space in Mexico and the U.S., and employs 800+ employees in its Mexico facility in Aguascalientes. “At the end of the day, it’s frustrating because there’s no clarity. Markets don’t like instability. The majority of our clients have cut back CapEx, and that’s difficult.”

Carr says the thr…