Nicole Bivins Collinson’s phone has barely stopped ringing since President-elect Donald Trump won the presidential race.
Collinson, who helps lead the international trade and government relations group at lobbying firm Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, said she is receiving “dozens, dozens, dozens” of anxious comments. of U.S. companies looking to protect themselves from Trump’s tough tariff plan with loopholes and exemptions.
“Absolutely everyone is on the phone,” Collinson told CNBC. “It’s non-stop.”
During the 2024 campaign, Trump made universal tariffs a core principle of his economic platform, imposing a 20% tariff on all imported goods from all countries, including a particularly severe 60% tariff on Chinese goods.
This overly protectionist approach to trade has sent shivers down the spines of economists, Wall Street analysts and industry leaders, who warn that sweeping tariffs could make production — and thus consumer prices — more expensive at a time when they is recovering from the pandemic.
“The threat of tariffs has alarmed retailers and so many other American businesses,” David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, told CNBC. “Since President Trump’s nomination, our members have Contingency plans are being made.”
Ron Sorini, principal of lobbying firm Sorini, Samet & Associates, echoed the sentiment, noting that he receives at least two to three calls a day to express companies’ concerns about the proposed tariff hikes, particularly in China.
“(Companies) are questioning where they should go and how do they get parts out of (China)? How do they get their entire supply chain out?” Solini said.
When Trump imposed the first set of tariffs on China in 2018, getting exemptions became a golden ticket for corporate America, a way to protect companies’ supply chains in China rather than pay the high price of relocation.
To get this golden ticket, you need to know the right people.
2021 research study The study found that applications for tariff exemptions during Trump’s first term were more likely to be approved if the lobbying firm’s employees had made political contributions to the Republican Party.
Now, with Trump set to re-enter the White House in a matter of weeks, escalating tariffs is more likely to become a reality.
Across corporate America, there is a race to find the right lobbyists to help companies work with the right people to give them an edge in closing tariff loopholes.
“Businesses are ready,” Veljko Fotak, a finance professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and one of the authors of the 2021 study, told CNBC. “The real winners from this process will be the lawyers and lobbyists.”
What the next Trump administration’s tariffs will look like, and whether exemptions will be provided, are unknown.
“Companies are going to have to plan for a variety of scenarios until there is clarity,” said Tiffany Smith, vice president of global trade policy at the National Foreign Trade Council.
In response to CNBC’s request for comment on the Trump team’s waiver plans and business concerns about the tariff proposals, Trump transition team spokesperson Karoline Leavitt doubled down on the president-elect’s campaign promises.
“The American people overwhelmingly re-elected President Trump, empowering him to fulfill the promises he made on the campaign trail. And he will deliver,” Levitt told CNBC in a statement.
Meanwhile, companies have been trying to mount defenses against Trump’s more aggressive trade tactics. These include stockpiling goods in the short term, preparing to raise prices to pass on the cost of import tariffs to customers, and trying to move production out of China.
On Thursday, Steve Madden pledged to reduce Chinese imports by 45% next year in light of Trump’s tariff plan.
But exiting China is a major undertaking for many U.S. companies, especially smaller ones that may not have the purchasing power or leverage to shift production so easily.
“I urge people to focus on the impact on small businesses. Those are the ones who are really hurting. There has to be some way to help companies like this,” Solini told CNBC. “Because they really can’t do it themselves.”
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