\n<\/p>\n
In two weeks, I\u2019m speaking to a group of companies in the packaging industry about issues affecting their businesses this year. I\u2019m going to discuss the economy, navigating higher costs, leveraging new tax legislation, AI and what companies are doing to find and retain workers in a volatile job market.<\/p>\n
You know what I won\u2019t be talking about? Tariffs.<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t the case a year ago. Back then, it was the hot topic everyone wanted to know about. How will tariffs affect my business? Should I increase prices? Is my company going to suffer? Are the tariffs legal? When will they end? In just the past year, a lot of those questions have been answered.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump\u2019s tariff increases affected some businesses \u2013 particular those heavily reliant on buying materials from China and India \u2013 but most seemed to weather the storm. In fact, many of my clients \u2013 and those in my audience \u2013 took the \u201ctariff\u201d news as an opportunity (ssshh!<\/em>) to increase prices even beyond the cost of the tariffs in order to tuck away a few extra dollars of profit. Others waited out the legal process and, thanks to the supreme court overturning the president\u2019s illegal use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, are waiting in line for refunds, which they\u2019ll ultimately receive.<\/p>\n Now, tariffs are back in the news. Facing the July expiration of Trump\u2019s temporary 10% global tariff, the administration this past week announced that it was planning to assess new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on 60 countries, including trading partners from the UK and the EU to China, India and Australia, for allegedly trading in goods that used forced labor, a strategy allowed under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.<\/p>\n Seems like something I should mention in my presentation to the packaging association, right? Not really. Not unless I want to put everyone to sleep. That\u2019s because at this point, and for most businesses, tariffs are a bore. They\u2019ve become a non-issue.<\/p>\n The owners in my audience are mostly profitable this year, thanks to our resilient consumer economy and continued economic growth. Many continue to hire. Their customers have been conditioned to expect price increases, if need be, but that may not even be necessary for some businesses as they take advantage of new tax deductions and productivity gains that can be achieved with technology and AI.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve also seen that the supposed \u201cking\u201d in the White House has a limit to his royal decrees. He has been struck down multiple times in the courts \u2013 foreign aid funding, birthright citizenship, national guard deployment, renaming the Kennedy Center \u2013 and has been forced to comply with both a judiciary and legislative branch that have curtailed many of his imperial plans. Ask any business owner about these new tariffs and they\u2019ll likely tell you that they expect them to be opposed, litigated and overturned.<\/p>\n The king\u2019s last tariff adventure had him illegally assessing tariffs, and because of the supreme court\u2019s rebuke the palace is being forced to comply with the actual law \u2013 which it\u2019s doing, by the way \u2013 and tariff refunds are flowing back to businesses (although not without some hiccups).<\/p>\n Businesses now regard tariffs as a short-term problem. That\u2019s because \u2013 to the relief of many \u2013 the Trump era is almost half over. Any new tariffs, even after they\u2019ve made their way through the inevitable challenges, can be easily overturned by the next administration. Do JD Vance or Marco Rubio feel as strongly about tariffs as their boss does? That\u2019s tough to say. One thing\u2019s for sure: there\u2019s not a single Democratic challenger, announced or otherwise, who supports them. So the long-term outlook for Trump\u2019s tariffs doesn\u2019t look great.<\/p>\n Even still, the president will say that his tariffs were successful. He will say that \u201ctrillions\u201d of new investments were made in the US by foreign companies seeking to avoid these levies, bringing new jobs and opportunities for Americans. He will point to data supporting an increase in manufacturing activity and say it was because of his tariffs. He will pretend that the datacenter boom and the AI economy don\u2019t really exist and that all of the GDP and stock market gains are due to tariffs and other parts of his economic policy.<\/p>\n His political opponents will say otherwise. They will say that they challenged the king and they won. They will tell their constituents that no man is above the law and that a president\u2019s policies can\u2019t go unchecked. They will promise that, once they re-assume power, they\u2019ll reverse the tariff (and other) damage he\u2019s done and make everything right again.<\/p>\n But business people don\u2019t really care. They cared when Trump imposed 50% tariffs on the goods they buy. They cared when American policy so upset their trading partners as to cause conflicts in their relationships. They cared when the president\u2019s actions were going \u2013 for a time \u2013 unchecked and unchallenged.<\/p>\n All of that has changed. It\u2019s apparent that, despite the protests and the rhetoric, the country still has no king. We just have a president and his every move is scrutinized and held in abeyance by the courts and Congress. His new tariffs are just a small fraction of what he really wanted, and not enough to significantly affect the profitability, hiring and investment plans of most businesses. They\u2019re just not as big of a concern as they were before. Which is why I\u2019m barely going to mention them when I speak to that packaging association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In two weeks, I\u2019m speaking to a group of companies in the packaging industry about issues affecting their businesses this year. I\u2019m going to discuss the economy, navigating higher costs, leveraging new tax legislation, AI and what companies are doing to find and retain workers in a volatile job market. You know what I won\u2019t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[303,99,24766,98,72,71,808],"class_list":{"0":"post-50343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-businesses","10":"tag-nonissue","11":"tag-small","12":"tag-tariffs","13":"tag-trumps","14":"tag-worry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}