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 trade-offs 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.
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.