President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20. (Evan Vucci/AP)
WASHINGTON — An analysis finds that a critical group of U.S. employers would face a direct cost of $82.3 billion from President Donald Trump’s current tariff plans, a sum that could be potentially managed through price hikes, layoffs, hiring freezes or lower profit margins.
The analysis by the JPMorganChase Institute is among the first to measure the direct costs created by the import taxes on businesses with $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, a category that includes roughly a third of private-sector U.S. workers. These companies are more dependent than other businesses on imports from China, India and Thailand — and the retail and wholesale sectors would be especially vulnerable to the import taxes being levied by the Republican president.
The findings show clear tradeoffs from Trump’s import taxes, contradicting his claims that foreign manufacturers would absorb the costs of the tariffs instead of U.S. companies that rely on imports. While the tariffs launched under Trump have yet to boost overall inflation, large companies such as Amazon, Costco, Walmart and Williams-Sonoma delayed the potential reckoning by building up their inventories before the taxes could be imposed.
Amazon ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America, and No. 1 on the TT Top 50 list of the largest global freight carriers. Walmart ranks No. 1 on the TT Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America, while Costco ranks No. 47. Costco also ranks No. 6 on TT’s wholesale/retail sector list.
Costco is among large companies that built up inventories before the tariffs could kick in. (Angus Mordant/Bloomberg News)
The analysis comes just ahead of the July 9 deadline by Trump to formally set the tariff rates on goods from dozens of countries. Trump imposed that deadline after the financial markets panicked in response to his April tariff announcements, prompting him to instead schedule a 90-day negotiating period when most imports faced a 10% baseline tariff. China, Mexico and Canada face higher rates, and there are separate 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Had the initial April 2 tariffs stayed in place, the companies in the JPMorganChase Institute analysis would have faced additional direct costs of $187.6 billion. Under the current rates, the $82.3 billion would be equivalent on average to $2,080 per employee, or 3.1% of the average annual payroll. Those averages include firms that don’t import goods and those that do.
Asked July 1 how trade talks are faring, Trump said simply: “Everything’s going well.”
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The president has indicated that he will set tariff rates given the logistical challenge of negotiating with so many nations. As the 90-day period comes to a close, only the United Kingdom has signed a trade framework with the Trump administration. India and Vietnam have signaled that they’re close to a trade framework.
There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that more inflation could surface. The investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a report that it expects companies to pass along 60% of their tariff costs onto consumers. The Atlanta Federal Reserve has used its survey of businesses’ inflation expectations to say that companies could on average pass along roughly half their costs from a 10% tariff or a 25% tariff without reducing consumer demand.
The JPMorganChase Institute findings suggest that the tariffs could cause some domestic manufacturers to strengthen their roles as suppliers of goods. But it noted that companies need to plan for a range of possible outcomes and that wholesalers and retailers already operate on such low profit margins that they might need to spread the tariffs costs to their customers.
The outlook for tariffs remains highly uncertain. Trump had stopped negotiations with Canada, only to restart them after the country dropped its plan to tax digital services. He similarly on June 30 threatened more tariffs on Japan unless it buys more rice from the U.S.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a July 1 interview that the concessions from the trade talks have impressed career officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other agencies.
“People who have been at Treasury, at Commerce, at USTR for 20 years are saying that these are deals like they’ve never seen before,” Bessent said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
The treasury secretary said the Trump administration plans to discuss the contours of trade deals next week, prioritizing the tax cuts package passed on July 1 by the Republican majority in the Senate. Trump has set a July 4 deadline for passage of the multitrillion-dollar package, the costs of which the president hopes to offset with tariff revenues.
