LONDON/NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With each day, evidence is mounting across the corporate world that the chaotic implementation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs is translating into caution on Main Street.
The uncertainty brought by Trump’s threats of tariffs and his shape-shifting trade policies is starting to have a chilling effect across many industries, businesses warn, as consumers pull back on everything from basic goods to travel.
The president’s back-and-forth tariff moves against major trading partners have kept markets on edge, and prompted companies to warn they may have to raise prices, which could boost inflation and dent economic growth. The White House fired another salvo on Tuesday, when Trump said he would double the planned tariff on all steel and aluminium imports from Canada to 50%.
While Trump has said his policies could cause short-term pain, investor concerns about their economic fallout have intensified in the last two days. Those worries have translated into a market selloff that has wiped out nearly $5 trillion in market value from the S&P 500’s peak last month, when Wall Street was cheering much of Trump’s agenda. [MKTS/GLOB]
“A market that was cruising has been disrupted by the White House,” said Patrick Kaser, portfolio manager at Brandywine Global. “The volatility is in part caused by the market’s uncertainty as to what the administration’s objectives are… why are we going after Canada, exactly?”
Even as markets have stumbled, CEOs have largely refrained from publicly criticizing Trump’s trade policies, instead citing “uncertainty” for ebbing confidence. Several of Trump’s economic advisers have alternated between downplaying the market’s concerns and stressing the need to reorient the economy toward domestic manufacturing, even if it causes near-term damage.
“The administration is saying this is a blip or whatever,” said Byron Callan, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners. “There’s maybe this willingness to just kind of punch through and try and prove markets are wrong. But that can carry a lot of risk … it’s the judgment of a small group of people against the judgment of millions of people.”
Speaking after the market close on Monday, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian warned that economic worries among consumers and businesses were hurting domestic travel, without referencing tariffs directly. He noted several sectors were showing softness, including autos, technology, media, and aerospace and defense.
Several other airlines warned of softness in U.S. spending on Tuesday, sending shares of those companies, along with cruise operators and entertainment giant Walt Disney Co, lower. Shares of Apple, the world’s most valuable company, touched a five-month low.
“Economic uncertainty is a big deal,” American Airlines CEO Robert Isom said at a JPMorgan industry conference.
Trump is expected to speak with around 100 CEOs later on Tuesday, including the heads of JPMorgan Chase, Walmart and General Motors at a regular meeting of the Business Roundtable in Washington. The Republican president met with technology company executives at the White House on Monday.
LATEST TARIFFS
The latest round of Trump tariffs – 25% levies on imported steel and aluminium – kick in on Wednesday. They will apply to millions of tons of steel and aluminium imports from Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and other countries that had been entering the U.S. duty-free under previous carve-outs.
Trump vowed the tariffs will be applied “without exceptions or exemptions” to try to aid the struggling U.S. industries. He said on Tuesday that his latest move against Canada was because the province of Ontario imposed a 25% surcharge on electricity it exports to the United States. Ontario froze that plan on Tuesday afternoon.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump also threatened to “substantially increase” tariffs on cars coming into the United States on April 2 “if other egregious, long time Tariffs are not likewise dropped by Canada.”
Ahead of these measures, a range of recent surveys of U.S. businesses and consumers has shown deteriorating sentiment, which, if sustained, could hamper investment and household spending.
The National Federation of Independent Business – a Washington lobby group whose members staunchly supported Trump in the 2024 election – reported small business sentiment weakened for a third straight month, erasing the bump from Trump’s election victory.
“The mere risk of severe policy changes reflected by this uncertainty is enough to have an impact on the economy, even in the absence of any actual policy changes,” said Rogier Quaedvlieg, ABN Amro’s senior U.S. economist.
SOUNDING THE ALARM
U.S. businesses broadly had greeted Trump’s election with optimism, fueled by pledges of deregulation and tax cuts. Instead, they have spent the early part of the year talking about tariffs, as more than 900 companies out of the largest 1,500 have discussed the topic since January 1, according to LSEG data.
At the same time, Republicans in Congress have yet to agree on a plan that would allow them to cut taxes and instead are focused this week on averting a government shutdown when funding expires at midnight on Friday.
Carsten Knobel, CEO of Germany’s Henkel, which makes Sellotape and Schwarzkopf hair products, said on Tuesday that he sees a “reluctance” in the United States for both consumer and industrial segments, citing the White House’s policies.
“What’s the end game? What’s trying to literally be accomplished with these tariffs? It hasn’t been explained to us,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth. “How can you model out for projections when you don’t know what the goals are?”
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal in Washington, Medha Singh in Bengaluru, Balazs Koranyi and Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt, and Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Dan Burns in New York; Writing by Josephine Mason; Editing by David Gaffen, Tomasz Janowski and Matthew Lewis)
