Boycott America fears rise...7 Apr 2025 13:38
CEOs who said they sell in as many as 100 markets are also increasingly worried about how other nations respond to U.S. tariff policy, not just governments, but the consumers they rely on for overseas sales.
“The biggest issue I worry about is boycotts of American brands and anti-American sentiment,” said a CEO whose company derives 40-45% of sales outside the U.S. “There is real backlash happening.”
“There is real potential the boycott of American goods has a meaningful impact on corporates, who will then have to cut jobs. There is increased probability of stagflation,” said another CEO Council member.
The services boom that has driven the U.S. economy to be the envy of the world’s markets, led by software, social media and cloud computing, will also be targeted. As one CEO explained, “tariffs as commonly thought of are applied to goods but the world is now much more oriented towards services than in the past and countries will try to build up employment and taxes in their services while limiting services that are based in other countries.”
The uncertainty that has driven the market selloff among investors was evident in the responses, with 46% of CEOs indicating tariffs would be bad for their business, but over a third (36%) saying it is still too soon to know. Among CEOs who are taking a wait-and-see approach, they are “war rooming” scenarios that involve their suppliers and consumers.
“We imagine that our suppliers will have to swallow part of the tariff and we will have to pass on part of the tariff to our customers. We are controlling what we can control, pricing and sourcing decisions. We can’t control the impact of tariffs on the consumer mindset which we imagine could be significant,” one CEO said.
The CEO who called the “Trump recession” said the loss of market value will end the consumer spending that was driven by the wealth effect, especially for the key 40-60 year-old demographic.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/07/trump-recession-inflation-job-losses-coming-ceos-say-cnbc-survey.html?taid=67f3c5fd5dd9020001505ccf&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
DYOR
Sign In
Follow the stocks
