How Tariffs Could Affect Your Portfolio and What to Do About It

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How Tariffs Could Affect Your Portfolio and What to Do About It

August 10th, 2026 IndexBox Leave a comment

As of August 4, the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, has placed tariffs on 60 key trading partners, citing inadequate enforcement of bans on goods made with forced labor. Because tariffs raise import prices and tend to weaken the U.S. dollar, businesses reliant on foreign goods often pass these higher costs to consumers, which can fuel inflation and create uncertainty among investors.

Given the president’s tendency to use tariffs aggressively, investors may want to review how these trade policies could affect their portfolios in both the near and long term, according to the source article.

What to avoid

Reacting impulsively to market shifts rarely leads to gains. If a portfolio consists of companies that have been thoroughly researched and are trusted, there is little reason to abandon them. Historically, staying invested in a diversified portfolio over an extended period has yielded better results than frequent trading based on short-term market moves. While current tariffs may hurt some holdings, longer holding periods tend to smooth out volatile stretches.

Changes may not be necessary simply because of the types of assets held. For instance, investors with exposure to U.S.-based supply chains, consumer staples, healthcare, or utilities may have actually benefited from tariffs due to reduced foreign competition.

For those looking to expand beyond core holdings and seeking investments that could endure future tariffs or trade disputes, it may be wise to consider options with strong potential to withstand prolonged tariff pressure.

Seeking stability

Certain investments are known for helping portfolios stay resilient during turbulent periods. While these assets are not always flashy and may not deliver spectacular returns, they can serve as effective portfolio balancers. Two examples stand out.

Commodities—including precious metals like gold and silver, energy products such as crude oil and natural gas, industrial metals like copper and aluminum, and select agricultural goods—can be sensible choices when tariffs are in effect. Commodities often benefit from inflationary pressures and supply disruptions, and as real assets, they can act as a hedge against the erosion of purchasing power.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform

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Tariff Refund Monetization: Retailers Sell Claims for Quick Cash

August 7th, 2026 IndexBox Leave a comment

Retailers seeking immediate cash have increasingly sold the economic rights to potential tariff refunds over the past year, according to BDO Managing Principal David Wong, as reported by Retail Dive. This secondary market emerged amid the legal dispute over tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), with buyers offering companies upfront cash in exchange for the rights to future refunds, a practice known as tariff refund monetization.

Wong noted that for sellers, the primary risk is the economic uncertainty of when an importer will actually receive the refund. He explained that companies must weigh accepting a discount on the potential refund amount against waiting for the full amount plus interest at a later date.

Before the Supreme Court ruled against the IEEPA-backed tariffs in February, American Eagle Outfitters sold a portion of its refund claims to a third-party buyer during fiscal year 2025. The third party purchased $68.9 million of the retailer’s refund claims for $18.6 million in cash, according to a June 3 quarterly report. As of the filing date, $33.1 million had been paid to the buyer from refunds the company received from the government. American Eagle Outfitters also reported applying for about $190 million in tariff refunds, with an anticipated net cash benefit of $140 million.

The discount rate for these transactions has varied depending on timing relative to the Supreme Court ruling, Wong said. Before the decision, refund claims traded at 30 to 40 cents on the dollar, representing a 60% to 70% discount. After the ruling and the establishment of a refund process with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, claims traded around 60 cents on the dollar.

The Children’s Place entered into a claim sale and purchase agreement with Alnus Investors on March 31, selling claims for refunds of tariffs originally invoked under IEEPA and previously paid to CBP, per its latest 10-K filing. Alnus purchased $38.2 million of these claims for about $25.7 million, and the retailer used the net proceeds to partially pay down borrowings under its ABL Credit Facility.

Lawrence Griff, head of retail and consumer brands at Grant Thornton, told Retail Dive that while such moves offer quick capital, the risk lies in the steepness of the discount. He said a CFO must weigh immediate cash against what could be realized with more patience, and that selling at too large a discount could invite criticism if market clarity later emerges.

Investment firm Oaktree Capital Management sued big-box retailer BJ’s for allegedly backing out of a deal to sell its refund claim. In a New York Supreme Court lawsuit filed in April, Oaktree said it had an agreement to purchase a $29 million refund claim from BJ’s for about $20 million, or roughly 70 cents on the dollar. BJ’s allegedly withdrew after CBP announced in April that it would launch a tariff refund portal. BJ’s did not respond to Retail Dive’s requests for comment.

Griff noted that many retailers seek alternative financing due to tighter working capital and seasonal inventory needs. However, the decision to sell refund rights at a discount depends on a retailer’s broader financial position. He said cash-rich big-box retailers with easy access to debt markets would not benefit from steep discounts, as their cost of capital is lower than that of other retailers.

Wong explained that the market for these deals has grown because traditional capital is too expensive, partly due to interest rates. Retailers often compare the cost of a commercial loan with the discount they would take on monetizing their tariff refund claim.

The market for these rights has not slowed after the IEEPA ruling. Griff said that with more certainty, more information, and large dollar amounts involved, a marketplace naturally develops, and it has remained robust even after the Supreme Court decision and the creation of a refund process.

https://www.indexbox.io/blog/tariff-refund-monetization-retailers-sell-claims-for-quick-cash/

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Apple, Amazon, Nike Get Billions in Tariff Refunds; Consumers Get Little

August 6th, 2026 IndexBox Leave a comment

Apple received an estimated $2.2 billion in tariff refunds last quarter, while Amazon obtained $600 million and Nike $300 million, according to a report published on August 5, 2026, by Yahoo Finance. The same source indicates that American consumers who faced higher prices as President Donald Trump’s tariffs moved through the economy have received almost no compensation.

These corporate payouts may represent only an initial wave, as the government continues to process refund claims following the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to strike down the most extensive tariffs imposed by the current President of the United States. In total, the government is obligated to refund roughly $166 billion to hundreds of thousands of importers, with a little more than half of that amount already disbursed, based on a court filing by Customs and Border Protection.

The tariffs cost households an estimated $1,000 on average last year, according to the Tax Foundation. Before the Supreme Court intervened, the Trump administration had considered issuing $2,000 tariff rebate checks to redistribute some of the collected revenue, but those checks were never distributed.

The refund system is designed so that only the parties that directly paid the tariffs, or the customs brokers acting on their behalf, can file for a refund. This means that a consumer who bought, for example, a pair of Nike sneakers that became more expensive because the company passed along some of its increased tariff costs has no legal avenue to recover that money.

In many instances, it is nearly impossible to determine how much of a company’s tariff refund came directly from consumers’ pockets. This difficulty arises because President Trump, during his second term, layered on multiple rounds of tariffs beyond those struck down by the Supreme Court. Even when a company raised prices, it can be hard to identify which specific tariffs those increases were meant to cover. Additionally, many businesses did not pass the full cost of tariffs onto shoppers, absorbing some of the impact themselves.

Amazon has been an exception, stating that it will provide direct refunds to customers in certain cases. The company’s chief financial officer, Brian Olsavsky, said last week during an earnings call that Amazon identified a limited set of circumstances where it could trace that it passed specific import charges on to customers, and that when it receives those refunds, it will proactively contact affected customers and automatically issue refunds. He added that in other cases, like other large retailers, Amazon will use the refunds to continue investing in low prices for customers.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform

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Trump Defends Tariff Policies, Announces New Duties on 60 Trading Partners

July 29th, 2026 IndexBox Leave a comment

President Donald Trump defended his administration’s tariff policies in an interview on Tuesday, asserting that the measures have generated substantial revenue for the United States. Speaking to Fox & Friends, the current President of the United States stated that the tariffs have brought in what he described as a fortune for the country.

The remarks come as the administration prepares to implement new duties of 10% and 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners, set to begin on Friday. These new tariffs will replace a temporary global tariff that is expiring. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced that the new levies, imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, will take effect immediately after the temporary duties expire at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday.

During the interview, host Brian Kilmeade asked whether the president was concerned that recent tariffs might harm the economy as manufacturing returns to the U.S. The president responded that the tariffs are bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars. He cited a visit to General Motors, noting that the company had its best year, with record production of trucks and cars. He credited tariffs with saving General Motors and boosting the auto and chip industries, mentioning that chip companies are building plants worth hundreds of billions of dollars in Arizona. He added that the U.S. is expected to capture 40 to 50% of the chip business within a year and a half, up from virtually nothing.

The president also commented on a Supreme Court decision from February that struck down his earlier reciprocal tariffs of 10% to 50%. He described the ruling as a close decision that forced him to take a more difficult approach to tariffs. In response to that ruling, the administration had implemented a temporary 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which is now expiring.

Among the trading partners facing the new 10% tariff are Canada, Mexico, India, and the United Kingdom. Taiwan and the European Union will face a 12.5% tariff. The president argued that tariffs have made the country wealthy and claimed that the threat of tariffs helped prevent conflicts, including averting a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. He asserted that Democrats are aware of the benefits of the tariffs. Trump highlighted the strength of the U.S. auto industry, stating that more car plants are being built now than at any time in history. He pointed to Toyota’s recent announcement of a $12 billion investment in U.S. plants, which he attributed to the company’s desire to avoid tariffs.

He noted that companies face no tariffs if they manufacture their products in the United States.

The Trump administration has decided not to extend the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and will instead pursue separate trade deals with Canada and Mexico.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform

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Trump Administration Imposes New Tariffs on 60 Trading Partners Over Forced Labor Concerns

July 24th, 2026 IndexBox Leave a comment

The Trump administration imposed new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners on Friday, citing allegations of lax enforcement of forced labor bans. The action, reported by Reuters, came as a temporary 10% global tariff expired.

The new duties cover 99.4% of U.S. imports but include product exemptions for oil and gas, fertilizer, and certain food items. They were imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a legal basis that has survived prior court challenges, reducing legal risk compared to earlier tariffs struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February. The Supreme Court had invalidated the president’s reciprocal duties of 10% to 50% imposed under a national emergencies law.

The temporary 10% global tariff expired at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Friday after 150 days, and the new tariffs took effect at the same moment. Goods already in transit are exempted until 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 28.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated that the United States has enforced a forced labor import ban for nearly a century and that it is time for trading partners to do the same. He described the action as correcting a human rights abuse and a distortive trade practice. Greer has previously indicated that for countries that have reached trade deals capping U.S. tariff rates, the new forced labor duties would not exceed those caps.

A 10% duty was applied to goods from Argentina, Bangladesh, Britain, Cambodia, Canada, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Trinidad and Tobago. The European Union, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Switzerland received rates that, combined with pre-existing most-favored-nation tariff rates, totaled 10% or 12.5%. The remaining 38 countries, including Vietnam and China, were assigned a 12.5% rate. Vietnam had issued a new decree this week banning imports of goods made with forced labor. The U.S. has accused China of detaining Uyghur minorities in work camps, an allegation Beijing denies.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform

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Tariff Uncertainty Has Become a Trade Barrier of It’s Own

July 23rd, 2026 Bhargav Prajapati Leave a comment

What Importers Should Watch After the Section 122 Tariff Sunsets

The Federal Circuit’s decision on June 11 to leave Section 122 global tariffs in place was a big procedural win for the administration. However; the surcharge expires on July 24 regardless of the final ruling, which will add further uncertainty to a tariff regime that has been marked by frequent and rapid changes over the last two years.

After the Supreme Court ruled in February that the Liberation Day tariffs were not authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the administration invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose a 10 percent surcharge on imports. In May, the Court of International Trade invalidated the measure as applied to the plaintiffs before it but declined to issue a universal injunction. The Federal Circuit stayed the relief in June pending appeal. Under Section 122, however, the surcharge can only be in effect for a maximum of 150 days without congressional approval. Absent such an action, that period ends on July 24, when the tariffs will expire. The main question stakeholders now face is, what framework will be in place after that and whether it will bring predictability back to U.S. tariff policy.

For importers, this uncertainty has direct implications for shipment timing, inventories, and contract pricing. The choice is whether to bring goods in now and pay the current surcharge, delay shipments in the hope that it expires, or build inventory in case another tariff replaces it. Some U.S. retailers have reportedly moved orders by four to six weeks to secure holiday inventory before the tariffs may change again. Orders that normally peak between July and September instead rose earlier than expected in May and June, which resulted in a tightening of the container space and higher shipping costs. The response to the anticipated tariffs in 2025 also showed a similar pattern when real imports rose at a 43 percent annual rate in the first quarter as businesses frontloaded their purchases, then fell sharply in April after many tariffs took effect.

The same uncertainty is also moving into contracts and customs compliance. Importers of record are generally responsible for paying duties; however, firms can allocate burden through contractual terms. Businesses have therefore been advised to review change-in-law, adjust prices, and renegotiate terms to determine who will bear any additional tariff costs. They are also being advised to review country-of-origin determinations, declared values, and supply-chain records as customs enforcement increases. The administration’s recent executive order directed Customs and Border Protection to raise bonding requirements for importers of record and collect more information about their ownership, assets, and expected import volumes. Moreover, for a large importer, a 10 percent surcharge can sometimes be spread across margins, inventory strategies, or internal financing. For smaller importers, the same uncertainty often must be handled through higher customer prices, delayed orders, or reduced investment. The Federal Reserve Survey responses published in 2026 found that 48 percent of small employer firms sourced at least some inputs from outside the United States. A large majority of the firms also reported year-over-year increases in the prices of those inputs. Among those firms, 76 percent passed at least some of the increase on to customers, while 60 percent absorbed part of it themselves. Of the responding firms, only 13 percent moved to domestic suppliers, and 8 percent changed foreign suppliers, which suggests that switching supply chains is not an immediate option for most firms. In this environment, uncertainty has tangible effects; it shapes pricing, inventory, contracts, and investment before the next policy framework is known.

The July 24 expiration is therefore the next policy cliff. Congress could extend the Section 122 surcharge, but absent that, the administration will need to rely on other trade authorities if it wants tariffs to continue. The most obvious alternatives are Sections 301 and 232. Both offer a possible longer-term path, but neither provides a simple replacement for a global surcharge. Section 301 may be the option that has been most developed. It allows the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to respond to an unreasonable or discriminatory foreign practice that burdens U.S. commerce. Unlike Section 122, however, it requires country-specific findings and an administrative process that includes consultations, public comments, and hearings. USTR has already completed findings in forced labor investigations involving 60 countries and proposed additional duties of either 10 or 12.5 percent on most products from those economies. Hearings on the proposed tariffs were held from July 7 through July 9. USTR is also conducting separate investigations into structural excess capacity involving 16 economies. These proceedings could preserve a broad tariff base, but the tariffs would rest on specific findings against specific countries rather than a single global measure.

Section 232 provides another path, although it is usually limited to specific products and national security concerns. The law requires an investigation, involves multiple federal agencies, and follows a statutory timetable before presidential action. Section 338 is also available when a foreign country is found to discriminate against U.S. commerce. It authorizes additional duties of up to 50 percent and can also completely exclude imports if the discrimination continues. Given the breadth of those remedies, however, Section 338 would be highly escalatory and legally as well as politically volatile. Taken together, these authorities point toward a possible patchwork of country and product specific tariffs in place of the current global surcharge.

After July 24, importers will need to look more closely at which tariffs apply to particular products and countries, especially as different measures begin to overlap. Product classification, country of origin, and the interaction between tariff programs will become more important to pricing and sourcing decisions. The post Section 122 landscape is likely to be more fragmented than the current regime with country-specific, sector-specific, and product-specific measures. Some of those measures may be more durable than the temporary surcharge. But from the standpoint of importers, challenges will remain if policy continues to change faster than supply chains can adjust. The real test of the next tariff framework will be whether it gives businesses enough stability to price, source, and plan beyond the next shipment.

Author Bio

Bhargav Prajapati is a Research Analyst at Capital Trade, Inc. in Washington, D.C., where he specializes in international trade litigation, trade remedies, and economic analysis supporting U.S. companies in antidumping, countervailing duty, sunset review, and safeguard proceedings before the U.S. International Trade Commission. His research focuses on the Indo-Pacific region, critical minerals, supply chain dynamics, and how artificial intelligence is reshaping comparative advantage and global economic power. He has appeared on Republic World and contributed analysis to outlets including The Diplomat, with prior research experience at the Brookings Institution’s 17 Rooms Program. Bhargav holds an M.A. in International Economic Relations with a specialization in econometrics and quantitative methods from American University.

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Tariffs Aren’t Temporary: Why It’s Time to Redesign Your Supply Chain Strategy

July 23rd, 2026 Curtis Spencer Leave a comment

For years, companies treated tariffs as a temporary disruption — something to endure until the next election or trade deal reversed course. That mindset no longer reflects reality.

Today’s trade environment is defined by volatility. Tariffs rise, fall, and expand with little warning, shaped as much by geopolitics as economics. For manufacturers, distributors, and importers, uncertainty isn’t an occasional disruption anymore — it’s the operating environment itself.

The companies that recognize this early will outperform those waiting for stability to return. The right question isn’t “When will tariffs go away?” It’s “How do we build a supply chain that performs well no matter what happens next?” That shift in thinking changes the entire strategy — and increasingly, it points toward tools like Foreign-Trade Zones (FTZs).

The End of Static Supply Chains

For decades, supply chains were designed around one goal: minimizing production cost. Companies concentrated manufacturing in low-cost countries and assumed relatively stable trade rules. That model doesn’t hold up against today’s combination of rising tariffs, geopolitical instability, and shipping disruptions.

Boards are now asking questions that rarely surfaced a decade ago: How exposed are we to future tariff increases? How quickly can we shift imports between facilities? Are we preserving cash flow as efficiently as possible? These are strategic questions — and FTZs answer several of them directly, by giving companies a designated, secure space to store, assemble, or manufacture goods before they formally enter U.S. commerce.

Why Reacting After Tariffs Are Announced Is Too Late

One of the most expensive mistakes companies make is waiting until new tariffs take effect before responding. By then, purchase orders are placed, freight is booked, and inventory is already crossing borders. Contracts can lock in higher costs for months or years.

Organizations that consistently outperform don’t respond to each announcement individually — they build in flexibility ahead of time. An active FTZ strategy is one of the few tools that lets a company absorb a tariff change without renegotiating contracts or relocating operations overnight, because merchandise entering a zone isn’t subject to duty until — or unless — it’s admitted into U.S. commerce.

Beyond Manufacturing Relocation

When tariffs dominate headlines, many executives assume the answer is relocating production. Reshoring or nearshoring can make sense for some industries, but relocating manufacturing takes years of planning, capital, and regulatory approval — and it doesn’t eliminate trade risk. Tariff policy can shift again, making today’s “safe” country tomorrow’s liability.

Instead of only asking where products should be manufactured, companies should examine how goods move after they arrive. This is where FTZs offer some of the fastest, least disruptive savings available — often achievable in months, not years.

Building Flexibility Into the Import Process

FTZs let companies hold inventory duty-free until needed, eliminate duty on re-exports, consolidate weekly customs entries to cut administrative costs, and defer duty payments until the goods actually are sold and removed from the zone which in today’s higher interest rate environment makes a lot of sense! An FTZ turns trade compliance into an operational advantage rather than a cost cente. And, it is officially recognized as a CTPAT best practice.

Cash Flow Is a Competitive Advantage

Executives often think of tariffs purely as a duty expense, but cash flow deserves equal weight. Paying duty immediately on importation ties up working capital that could fund inventory, hiring, or growth. FTZ users, by contrast, defer that payment until goods actually enter U.S. commerce — and can eliminate it entirely on merchandise that’s re-exported. In today’s higher-rate environment, that deferral is a real financial advantage, not just a customs technicality.

Technology Is Changing the Decision

Advanced analytics and real-time visibility platforms now let companies model tariff exposure, FTZ savings, and distribution alternatives before committing resources — turning FTZ feasibility from a lengthy guessing game into a data-driven decision.

Supply Chains as Strategic Assets

Supply chains were once viewed as cost centers. Today they’re competitive differentiators. Customers expect reliable delivery despite global uncertainty, and boards expect proactive risk management. Companies that build FTZ capability into their network aren’t just cutting today’s tariff bill — they’re creating a structure that can adapt to whatever trade policy does next.

Looking Beyond the Next Trade Headline

Trade policy will keep evolving — some tariffs will fall, others will rise, new regulations will emerge. Predicting each change is nearly impossible. Building an organization that can absorb those changes is achievable, and FTZs are one of the most proven tools for doing it.

The companies that outperform over the next decade won’t necessarily be the ones paying the lowest tariffs today. They’ll be the ones with the infrastructure — FTZs included — to adjust as conditions change. The conversation should no longer be about surviving the next round of tariffs. It should be about designing a supply chain built to thrive regardless of what comes next.

Author Bio

Curtis Spencer is the CEO of IMS Worldwide Inc., a global supply chain and trade advisory firm with deep expertise in Foreign-Trade Zone strategy, industrial real estate, and logistics optimization. IMS Worldwide has guided organizations through FTZ activation and tariff management for over three decades. To begin a preliminary FTZ feasibility assessment for your operation, visit www.imsw.com.

Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

How to Tariff-Proof Your Supply Chain Before the Next Policy Shift

June 23rd, 2026 Muhammad Amash Leave a comment

Tariff policy in 2025 and 2026 has not behaved like a normal trade cycle. Rates have escalated, paused, partially rolled back, and re-escalated within months of each other, and the effective U.S. tariff rate has climbed to levels not seen since 1901 (Cushman & Wakefield). For supply chain leaders, the practical problem is no longer “how do we absorb this tariff” — it’s “how do we build a supply chain that doesn’t need to be rebuilt every time policy changes again.”

That shift in thinking is now visible in the data. According to the Thomson Reuters Institute’s 2026 Global Trade Report, supply chain management has become the dominant strategic priority for trade professionals, cited by 68% of respondents — nearly double the 35% who named it a top concern just a year earlier (Thomson Reuters Institute). More tellingly, 76% of trade professionals surveyed now believe current U.S. tariffs represent a permanent shift in trade policy rather than a temporary negotiating position, and that belief has fundamentally changed how companies plan (Thomson Reuters Institute).

Tariff-proofing, in other words, isn’t about predicting the next policy move. It’s about building enough structural flexibility that the next move doesn’t matter as much. Here’s what that looks like in practice, drawing on how companies are actually restructuring right now.

1. Stop Betting on a Single Country — But Don’t Abandon China Either

The instinct after a tariff shock is to exit the affected country entirely. In practice, the more resilient companies are doing something more measured: keeping their established supplier base while deliberately building one or two parallel sourcing options elsewhere.

Genpact’s global supply chain lead Tanguy Caillet, speaking to FreightWaves, described this as a move away from decades of supplier rationalization — the old playbook of consolidating spend with fewer vendors to negotiate better unit pricing. That approach, he noted, created supply chains that were fragile precisely because they depended on a small number of factories or countries. The shift now underway is toward dual or triple sourcing options for critical inputs, specifically so single points of failure can be eliminated when a company has dual or triple supply options, it can eliminate single-source suppliers it had relied on for years (FreightWaves).

Apple’s response to 2025 tariff increases illustrates both the strategy and its real cost. The company has accelerated plans to shift 15 to 20 percent of its production to India and Vietnam by 2026, reducing exposure to U.S.-China tariffs, and has invested more than $1 billion in Indian manufacturing facilities since 2023 (SupplyChainBrain). But the transition wasn’t frictionless — bottlenecks in Vietnam led to a 10 percent increase in lead times for some products in late 2024 (SupplyChainBrain). The lesson isn’t that diversification fails — it’s that it has to be planned as a multi-year operational project, not a reactive scramble.

This is now the dominant strategy industry-wide. STG Logistics’ latest survey found that more than 40% of organizations plan to further diversify sourcing in 2026, and crucially, more than half of respondents said they would have diversified earlier if they could revisit their 2025 decisions (STG Logistics). The companies that move first on diversification, even before a tariff forces their hand, are the ones avoiding the worst of the scramble.

A practical note on where that diversification is heading: Vietnam, long the default “China alternative,” is now itself facing tariffs as high as 46%, which is eroding its cost advantage. India is gaining ground in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and increasingly electronics manufacturing; Indonesia remains competitive in palm oil, rubber, and basic manufacturing; and Mexico continues to offer a distinct advantage through USMCA preferential treatment (Gray Group International). The right destination depends entirely on the product category — there’s no longer a single universal answer.

2. Use Bonded Warehouses and Foreign Trade Zones to Buy Time and Flexibility

This is the mitigation tool least understood outside trade-compliance circles, and it deserves more attention from operations leaders than it typically gets.

A customs bonded warehouse lets an importer bring goods into the United States and store them — for up to five years — without paying duty immediately. Duty is only assessed when the goods are actually withdrawn for sale, and critically, it’s assessed at whatever the tariff rate happens to be on the withdrawal date, not the date of import (Cushman & Wakefield). In a tariff environment that has swung up and down multiple times in eighteen months, that timing flexibility has real financial value: a company can hold inventory and release it strategically when rates are more favorable.

Foreign Trade Zones work on a related principle but are built for continuous, large-scale operations rather than short-term storage. Goods inside an FTZ can be stored, assembled, or manufactured without triggering duty unless and until they enter U.S. commerce — and if they’re re-exported instead, no U.S. duty applies at all. FTZs also enable something called inverted tariff relief, where a finished product can carry a lower duty rate than the individual imported components used to build it, which matters enormously in sectors like automotive and electronics assembly (Forceget Supply Chain Logistics).

There is one important recent wrinkle worth flagging to anyone evaluating this strategy now: under the reciprocal tariff executive order that took effect in April 2025, goods admitted into an FTZ after that date are locked into the tariff rate in effect at the time of entry, regardless of how long they sit in the zone. That changes the calculus for FTZ use going forward, though bonded warehouses — where duty is still assessed at withdrawal — remain a more flexible option for companies trying to time their tariff exposure (SCS Solutions). Companies evaluating either tool should work directly with a licensed customs broker, since the regulatory mechanics differ by facility type and have been shifting alongside the policy itself.

STG’s 2026 survey data confirms this is no longer a niche tactic: more than 40% of surveyed organizations used bonded storage or FTZs in 2025, with a majority reporting positive results, and the trend is accelerating into 2026 (STG Logistics).

3. Renegotiate Supplier Contracts to Share — Not Just Absorb — Tariff Risk

Tariff cost is too often treated as the importer’s problem alone. The companies adapting fastest are restructuring supplier agreements so the risk is shared contractually, not absorbed unilaterally after the fact.

This shows up in two forms. First, in pricing structures: contracts that build in tariff-adjustment clauses tied to published duty rates, so cost increases trigger an agreed renegotiation rather than an unplanned margin hit. Second, in logistics contracts themselves — many companies are deliberately moving away from long-term ocean carrier agreements in favor of shorter, more flexible terms. STG’s research found that 31.2% of organizations secured more flexible freight contract terms — shorter durations, variable rates — specifically so they could adjust quickly as trade policy and shipping markets shift (STG Logistics).

The Thomson Reuters data backs this as one of the most common responses industry-wide: changing sourcing patterns is the top tariff mitigation strategy at 65% of respondents, but renegotiating supplier contracts follows closely behind at 57% — well ahead of nearshoring, which sits at 51% (Thomson Reuters Institute). Contract flexibility, in other words, is now considered just as important as where you source from.

4. Invest in Trade Data Analytics — and Treat Trade as a Strategic Function, Not a Back-Office Cost

The single clearest organizational shift in the data is the elevation of the trade compliance function itself. Trade departments that were historically viewed as a cost center are now being pulled into core strategic planning, specifically because tariff volatility requires constant reanalysis of sourcing, classification, and country-of-origin decisions (Thomson Reuters Institute).

This is reflected in technology investment. Trade and supply chain data analytics is now the most widely deployed trade technology, used by 58% of organizations surveyed — ahead of any other single tool (Thomson Reuters Institute). The reason is straightforward: HTS classification, country-of-origin documentation, and duty exposure modeling have all become more complex and higher-stakes, and manual review can’t keep pace with how frequently the underlying rates are changing.

In practice, this means building (or buying into) systems that can model landed cost across multiple sourcing scenarios in real time — not just current cost, but cost under two or three plausible future tariff scenarios. Companies that can run that analysis quickly are the ones who can shift sourcing or release bonded inventory at the right moment, rather than reacting after the fact.

5. Build Cross-Functional Trade Risk Councils

One organizational change worth specifically flagging: companies are increasingly standing up dedicated, cross-functional groups — sometimes called trade risk councils — that bring procurement, logistics, finance, and compliance together specifically to respond to tariff developments in real time. Genpact’s Caillet described this trend as emerging organically across the industry in direct response to sustained tariff pressure, and more than half of trade professionals surveyed expect this kind of cross-departmental collaboration to keep growing over the next year (Thomson Reuters Institute).

This matters because tariff response decisions — which supplier to shift volume to, whether to release bonded inventory now or wait, how to reprice a contract — cut across departments that have traditionally operated in silos. A council structure shortens the time between a policy announcement and an actual operational decision, which is often the difference between absorbing a cost increase gracefully and absorbing it in a panic.

The Bottom Line

None of these five strategies are quick fixes, and none of them make a company immune to the next tariff announcement. What they do is shrink the distance between “policy changes” and “we have a plan.” Genpact’s Caillet made a point that’s worth sitting with: even multinational shippers who were caught off guard early in this tariff cycle found that earlier investments in visibility and decision-making tools meant they were better prepared than they expected to be when the volatility actually hit (FreightWaves).

That’s the real definition of tariff-proofing. Not predicting policy. Building a supply chain — and a decision-making process — flexible enough that the next shift is an adjustment, not a crisis.

Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

Tariff Volatility is Creating Hidden Export Compliance Risks

June 18th, 2026 Jackson Wood, Director of Industry Strategy, Global Trade Intelligence at Descartes Leave a comment

Far from just a cost issue, tariffs are reshaping global supply chains and changing how businesses assess corporate risk.

As tariffs continue to influence boardroom decisions, companies are changing suppliers, reviewing country of origin, reclassifying products, and using alternative shipping routes to reduce duty exposure. These moves can protect margins, but they can create export control, sanctions, and denied party screening risks that are easy to miss.

A new supplier may be linked to a restricted entity. A new intermediary may create Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) exposure. An alternative route may involve a high-risk jurisdiction. A reclassification exercise may reduce duties while creating new export licensing obligations.

Key takeaways

Tariff mitigation can create hidden export control risks when supply chains change quickly.
Supplier switches, intermediaries, and alternative routing decisions can introduce ownership, jurisdictional, sanctions, and licensing exposure.
Automated denied party screening and export license controls should be built into tariff planning from the start.
Legal, finance, procurement, and logistics teams need to align before cost-saving decisions are implemented.

The tariff volatility era

The current tariff environment is defined by uncertainty. Ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China, retaliatory tariff cycles, changing trade policy priorities, and the Supreme Court’s review of presidential tariff authority continue to affect landed costs with limited warning.

Descartes’ survey of 800 compliance and supply chain leaders reflects this pressure. Half of respondents cited tariffs as their primary trade compliance challenge, while 65% said compliance is becoming more difficult due to operational disruption and instability in trade governance.

In response, more companies are using tariff engineering, product reclassification, alternative production hubs, and routing changes. These strategies can be commercially sensible, but they put pressure on internal teams. Legal must validate new interpretations, finance must recalculate landed costs, and logistics must reconfigure trade lanes as sourcing regions shift.

When changes happen faster than compliance review, sanctions exposure, denied party violations, and export control failures can escalate quickly.

Where tariff mitigation and export compliance collide

Tariff workarounds are now common, but every compliance leader should ask how these strategies could create new export compliance risk.

Supplier changes

The push to onboard lower-tariff suppliers can outpace due diligence. A supplier that appears attractive from a cost perspective may still present risk through hidden beneficial ownership, restricted affiliates, or links to sanctions or export control lists.

A supplier may look risk-free at onboarding, but later become restricted through ownership changes, new designations, or updated guidance.

Transshipment and country of origin changes

Changing routes or adjusting country of origin to reduce tariff exposure can create serious compliance risk. These decisions may introduce new export licensing obligations, sanctions concerns, or customs violations.

For example, rerouting shipments through the UAE, Mexico, or Southeast Asian trade hubs may reduce tariff exposure in some scenarios, but it can also introduce end-user checks, diversion concerns, or regional controls under Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and OFAC rules.

If origin claims are not backed by clear evidence of substantial transformation, companies may face customs penalties and broader export control scrutiny.

Tariff engineering and reclassification

Tariff engineering can affect export control classification. A change in product composition, software configuration, technical specification, or component sourcing may alter the relevant Export Control Classification Number (ECCN).

A product modified to qualify for a lower Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) rate may include components or technology that move it into a more controlled category. If teams reassess tariff classification without reviewing export control status, they may miss licensing requirements.

Classification needs a repeatable process with documented rationale and clear links between HTS, ECCN, origin, and product data.

Weak documentation and audit trails

In many tariff mitigation projects, documentation is treated as an afterthought. That creates enforcement risk.

Records should show why a supplier was selected, how country of origin was determined, what classification logic was used, which parties were screened, and who approved the decision. Weak records make it harder to defend tariff positions during audits.

If production is moved from China to Vietnam, for example, the company must be able to prove true origin and substantial transformation. Without that evidence, regulators may challenge both the duty treatment and export control process.

How technology can close the risk gap

Tariff mitigation without compliance controls is risky. Static screening and spreadsheet tracking are unlikely to keep pace when suppliers, routes, brokers, product specifications, and end users are changing frequently.

More mature compliance programmes rely on systems that monitor risk continuously and keep evidence connected to each decision. Useful capabilities include dynamic denied party screening, automated rescreening, export classification workflows, automated export license management, trade-lane risk monitoring, and centralized audit trails.

These controls help ensure tariff-driven decisions remain visible, reviewable, and defensible.

Building resilience into tariff mitigation

The companies best placed to manage tariff volatility will be those that modernise compliance at the same pace as sourcing and logistics strategy.

Compliance cannot sit at the end of the process. It needs to be built into supplier onboarding, procurement decisions, product classification, routing reviews, and export license management.

Cross-functional alignment is essential. Procurement may identify a lower-cost supplier, but legal and compliance teams need to assess ownership, sanctions, and export control exposure. Logistics may identify an alternative trade lane, but compliance must evaluate jurisdictional and transshipment risk. Finance may calculate duty savings, but those savings need to be weighed against enforcement exposure.

Conclusion

Tariff mitigation will remain a core part of global supply chain strategy, but it cannot be viewed only through the lens of cost reduction.

Supplier switches, routing changes, origin reviews, and tariff engineering can all create export compliance consequences. If those risks are not identified early, a strategy designed to protect margins can become a source of sanctions exposure, licensing failures, or audit findings.

Businesses that embed denied party screening, export classification, license management, and documentation into tariff planning will be better prepared for continued volatility.

About Jackson Wood

Jackson Wood is Director, Industry Strategy, at Descartes within the company’s Global Trade Intelligence business unit. With more than 20 years of experience in global trade compliance and geopolitical risk management, he works across R&D, product management, and commercial operations to help develop solutions for an increasingly complex trade environment. His work focuses on helping customers navigate compliance challenges and realize greater value from Descartes’ risk and compliance solutions.

Global Logistics, Global Trade Daily, International Trade

The Volatility Isn’t the Tariffs. It’s Your TMS

May 8th, 2026 Rico van Leuken Leave a comment

The tariff story dominating headlines isn’t the one disrupting your operation. The disruption is volatility and most logistics systems weren’t built to handle it.

On April 20, US Customs and Border Protection opened the CAPE refund portal, and importers are now lined up against an estimated $166 billion in repayments the Treasury Secretary has already said could be “dragged out for weeks, months, years.” Trump put the number at five. A 10 percent Section 122 surcharge replaced a chunk of the IEEPA tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February, Section 232 and 301 investigations remain on the table, and the trade environment most logistics teams built their planning cadence around no longer exists.

If you run logistics for a North American shipper, the tariff story is not your story. The volatility is. Costs are moving faster than your system can respond.

The gap most leaders aren’t naming

Talk to any logistics team right now and they’ll describe the same pattern. A new duty drops on Tuesday. Sourcing reprices the affected SKUs by Friday. Procurement renegotiates with carriers the following week, and somewhere in the middle of that scramble, the transportation management system is still optimizing lanes against a cost table someone last touched in Q1.

Most TMS platforms were designed for a stable cost environment, with duties, surcharges, fuel rates, and carrier accessorials all treated as fixed inputs on a quarterly refresh. That assumption held for twenty years. It doesn’t anymore.

Tariffs are one of several variables now moving in real time, alongside fuel prices that track geopolitical shocks, carrier capacity that shifts with reshoring demand, and dynamic pricing already live in most contracts. The cost is not abstract. It’s margin leakage on every load you move on outdated assumptions.

Lane decisions that looked right on Monday are wrong by Wednesday, carrier selections miss current surcharges, and planning cycles can’t keep up with how fast the cost structure moves. The variance doesn’t surface until the invoice lands, and by then you’ve already made the same decision three more times.

The real pressure isn’t coming from where you think

Most of the tariff coverage is missing the bigger story. The immediate pressure on North American shippers isn’t the duty itself; it’s the reshoring response to it.

Manufacturing is moving from Asia back to the US, and the commitments are concrete. IndustrialSage’s manufacturing investment tracker clocked roughly $1.595 trillion in announced US investment across 132 companies and 32 states as of March 31, 2026. This equates to more road freight, more trucks on domestic lanes, and more capacity decisions made against a labor base that was already tight. Driver shortage was a live problem before any of this. Now the white-collar side is tightening too. Experienced logistics professionals are retiring, and the next generation isn’t lining up to replace them with the tools the industry is handing them.

So the variable changing fastest isn’t the tariff rate. It’s the volume and complexity of domestic freight that US shippers now have to plan and execute with a shrinking workforce. Tariff litigation is the headline. A domestic logistics surge hitting systems and teams that weren’t built for it is the operational story underneath.

What the right architecture actually looks like

Stop treating cost volatility as an exception to manage. Start treating it as a baseline condition the platform has to handle.

That means real-time inputs feeding routing and carrier decisions, not quarterly refreshes. It means scenario planning that can model a new tariff regime or a Section 232 expansion in hours rather than weeks. It means dynamic surcharge and fuel logic wired into optimization from the ground up, not added on later as a patch.

It also means being honest about architecture. A TMS that bolts volatility features onto a legacy core will hit a ceiling, and the ceiling is lower than most vendors want to admit. The systems that hold up are the ones built on the assumption that the cost environment will never be stable again.

If you’re evaluating your stack right now, the question isn’t “does our TMS handle tariffs?” It’s this: when our cost structure changes next month under a legal authority that doesn’t yet exist, how long does it take our system to reflect that in a routing decision? If the answer is measured in weeks, the system is the problem.

Why the window is narrower than it looks

The freight from $1.595 trillion in committed manufacturing build-out is coming on a timeline that doesn’t wait for a TMS re-implementation. First fabs are completing construction now. Volume production is ramping through 2026. Full staffing extends through the end of the decade.

Meanwhile, the TMS category has spent most of the past decade innovating in marketing rather than architecture. Visibility was the term in 2016. Resilience was the term in 2021. Now it’s AI. The underlying platforms, in too many cases, haven’t meaningfully changed.

Shippers are about to find out whether the system they bought in a stable-cost environment can survive a permanently unstable one. The teams that move now will have a six to twelve month lead on the ones who wait for their next re-implementation cycle to solve what daily volatility is already costing them on the margin.

A challenge to the room

If you’re a logistics leader reading this, don’t ask your team what your tariff exposure is. Ask them a harder question.

Are we leaving money on the table because our TMS cannot factor tariff changes into routing decisions in real time? Or is our platform actively surfacing those variables so every lane decision reflects the current cost environment?

The answers will tell you whether you’re running a logistics platform or a spreadsheet with a user interface. The first one survives the next four years. The second one doesn’t.

How Tariffs Could Affect Your Portfolio and What to Do About It

What to avoid

Seeking stability

The End of Static Supply Chains

Why Reacting After Tariffs Are Announced Is Too Late

Beyond Manufacturing Relocation

Building Flexibility Into the Import Process

Cash Flow Is a Competitive Advantage

Technology Is Changing the Decision

Supply Chains as Strategic Assets

Looking Beyond the Next Trade Headline

1. Stop Betting on a Single Country — But Don’t Abandon China Either

2. Use Bonded Warehouses and Foreign Trade Zones to Buy Time and Flexibility

3. Renegotiate Supplier Contracts to Share — Not Just Absorb — Tariff Risk

4. Invest in Trade Data Analytics — and Treat Trade as a Strategic Function, Not a Back-Office Cost

5. Build Cross-Functional Trade Risk Councils

The Bottom Line

Key takeaways

The tariff volatility era

Where tariff mitigation and export compliance collide

Supplier changes

Transshipment and country of origin changes

Tariff engineering and reclassification

Weak documentation and audit trails

How technology can close the risk gap

Building resilience into tariff mitigation

Conclusion

About Jackson Wood

The gap most leaders aren’t naming

The real pressure isn’t coming from where you think

What the right architecture actually looks like

Why the window is narrower than it looks

A challenge to the room

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