Trump Trade War Spreads More Gloom Across Businesses
Warren TakundaSummary:
Trump tariffs reshaping business strategies, roiling markets
Businesses across multiple industries are increasing prices, cutting financial guidance and warning of growing uncertainty as U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war pushes up costs, up-ends supply chains and stirs concerns about the global economy.
Comments on Thursday from the world's biggest packaged food companies underscored worries among business executives and investors that Trump's tariffs and his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will hurt confidence on Main Street.
"Some political decisions, economic decisions taken have rather undermined already soft consumer confidence," Nestle CEO Laurent Freixe told reporters in an earnings call.
Dove soap maker Unilever, which was also reporting earnings, described "declining consumer sentiment" in its North American markets.
Stocks drifted on Thursday and a rebound in the dollar fizzled out as investors tried to pick through the Trump administration's fast-changing announcements on tariffs and the leadership of the Fed, the U.S. central bank.
While most of the tariffs have been paused for 90 days until July 8, a 10% universal rate and duties on aluminium, steel and car imports remain in place, as do eye-popping levies on goods imported from China, to which Beijing has responded in kind.
The Trump administration will look at lowering tariffs on imported Chinese goods pending talks between the two countries, a source told Reuters on Wednesday.
With the first-quarter earnings season entering its second busy week, companies were counting the costs of the chaos and setting out how they plan to stem the fallout.
Medical equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific and soda and snacks giant PepsiCo became the latest companies to cut annual profit forecasts, citing the trade turmoil.
Thermo Fisher also warned of the impact of the Trump administration's proposed cuts to academic research funding.
Hyundai Motor said it had launched a task force to handle its response to the tariffs and moved production of some Tucson crossover vehicles from Mexico to the United States.
"We expect a challenging business outlook to continue due to intensifying trade wars and other various unpredictable macroeconomic factors," it said.
The automaker is also considering whether to move production of some U.S.-bound cars from South Korea to other locations, it said as it reaffirmed its annual earnings targets.
Hyundai and affiliate Kia, which together are the world's third-biggest automaking group by sales, generate about one-third of their global sales from the U.S. market and imports account for roughly two-thirds of their U.S. car sales.
Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said nearly 3,000 firms have already made enquiries about its 200 billion yuan ($27.35 billion) fund, announced on April 11, to help exporters sell their products domestically over the next year.
CONSUMER SENTIMENT
In another sign of ebbing consumer confidence, Essity's CEO Magnus Groth told Reuters the Swedish tissue maker had seen a drop in demand for hygiene products from hotels and restaurants in North America because people are eating out less and may not be travelling.
Phonemaker Nokia flagged a short-term disruption from U.S. tariffs, while Dassault Systemes, which sells software to automakers, airplane manufacturers and defence companies, cut its forecast profit margin due to tariff-related market volatility, knocking its shares.
Nestle and Unilever delivered better-than-expected quarterly sales, but they and their big-brand rivals are easing U.S. price increases to avoid losing American shoppers to retailers' less expensive private-label brands.
That may help soothe concerns that tariffs will fuel a spike in inflation and slow the U.S. economy, although other companies, including Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, LG Electronics and Interparfums have said they are hiking U.S. prices or may do so.
"As we look ahead, we expect more volatility and uncertainty, particularly related to global trade developments, which we expect will increase our supply chain costs," PepsiCo Chairman and CEO Ramon Laguarta said on Thursday.
"At the same time, consumer conditions in many markets remain subdued and similarly have an uncertain outlook."
Source: Reuters
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