Catenaa, Wednesday, July 02, 2025- JPMorganChase says US employers would face a direct cost of $82.3 billion from President Donald Trump’s current tariff plans, which would result in price hikes and layoffs.
The analysis is among the first to measure the direct costs created by the import taxes on businesses with $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, a category that includes roughly a third of private-sector US workers.
These companies are more dependent than other businesses on imports from China, India and Thailand, and the retail and wholesale sectors would be especially vulnerable to the import taxes being levied by Trump.
The findings show clear trade-offs from Trump’s import taxes, contradicting his claims that foreign manufacturers would absorb the costs of the tariffs instead of US companies that rely on imports.
While the tariffs launched under Trump have yet to boost overall inflation, large companies such as Amazon, Costco, Walmart and Williams-Sonoma delayed the potential reckoning by building up their inventories before the taxes could be imposed.
Had the initial April 2 tariffs stayed in place, the companies in the JPMorganChase Institute analysis would have faced additional direct costs of $187.6 billion.
Under the current rates, the $82.3 billion would be equivalent on average to $2,080 per employee, or 3.1% of the average annual payroll. Those averages include firms that don’t import goods and those that do.
The JPMorganChase Institute findings suggest that the tariffs could cause some domestic manufacturers to strengthen their roles as suppliers of goods.
But it noted that companies need to plan for a range of possible outcomes and that wholesalers and retailers already operate on such low profit margins that they might need to spread the tariffs costs to their customers.
