CFOs are feeling the tariff whiplash

Tariff uncertainty defined 2025 for CFOs. And 2026 potentially holds just as much chaos.

The Supreme Court struck down tariffs that President Trump had imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, but a few hours later Trump reimposed a flat “global tariff” of 10%, then raised it to 15% the next day.

How are finance chiefs approaching the current situation, what actions they’re taking, if any, and how disruptive the changes will be to their businesses?

Here’s what they told us.

These quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Scott Bly, CFO, Kona Bicycle Company: “It’s challenging just because of not knowing where the goalposts are. With business, you’re looking for certainty…We hear rumors that Indonesia's tariffs are going to go down, and so then do we work more with that manufacturer? Because we have a long lead time. That’s the challenging part, is just the uncertainty of it. If we just knew, ‘Okay, well, this is what it is,’ then we could react to that…We haven’t decided to work with the manufacturer in Indonesia, because that wasn’t final. That was just agreed upon between the two nations, but not put into law yet. And now with the 15% it doesn’t matter. Now we’re going to be going back to our manufacturers and saying, where else can we find some savings?…It is a confusing time and it’s hard to move forward with uncertainty.”

Rahul Ray Ratan, founder of Surf Systems & Solutions, and a fractional/interim CFO who works with manufacturing, hardware, and construction companies: “Flexibility is still the name of the game. We do not see this as being set in stone. We think further change will come again. Planning for [our clients] is three to six months at this point. And that’s just the way it’s been since the [tariff] situation started last year. We think flexibility is probably the best way to play this. We don’t see this as a flash sale, where we go in and make significant purchases. We also don’t see this as a time to wait for the tariffs to come down. In the long term, it’s possible, but I think our time horizon is one or two quarters at this point.”

Sandra Kazee, CFO of Ambi Robotics: “I’m trying not to constantly make changes, because they do keep going back and forth. I’m trying to just look at trends of what we’ve paid in the past and just take averages from that. I feel like having our real historical data is the most helpful right now, because things are changing day to day.”

Kellie Becker, CPA, partner, Plante Moran: “Right now there’s too much confusion [about refunds]. Some of our clients did the lawsuit so they were already clear on being ready and being prepared. The other ones are back to not knowing what’s going to change next and not sure if they should actually make any decisions. So the ones that did make decisions are moving forward…The middle market space in manufacturing, it’s still this wait and see what’s actually going to happen, and should I invest my efforts in there versus just growing my business?”