Washington, D.C. – Amid growing concerns over new and continued tariff actions, a new survey conducted by the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) reveals that businesses across sectors are delaying growth, reducing operations, and reassessing investments due to the uncertainty created by U.S. trade policy. While intended to boost domestic manufacturing, current and proposed tariffs are having the opposite effect: creating bottlenecks, inflating costs, and eroding American competitiveness.
The NFTC’s recently conducted Supply Chain Survey captured insights from industry leaders across manufacturing, technology, food and beverage, and services sectors. Key findings include:
These effects are being felt across entire supply chains, from raw material sourcing to aftermarket services, and respondents overwhelmingly expressed concern over unpredictable announcements, lack of strategic clarity, and limited flexibility for essential imports.
“Volatility in trade policy, and tariffs in particular, are hurting rather than helping U.S. companies. U.S.-based firms create American jobs, supply our domestic economy, and foster international competitiveness by sourcing and selling in the global economy. Injecting uncertainty into this process increases costs, thwarts innovation, and threatens to bring back shortages of the products we all use.” said John Pickel, Vice President for International Supply Chain Policy at NFTC. “Rather than incentivizing domestic production, the current tariff environment and broader trade policy uncertainty is paralyzing supply chain decision-making, forcing companies to delay or even cancel projects that support American jobs.”
“U.S. policymakers should adopt a more structured approach,” Pickel continued. “The Administration should articulate clear, phased objectives and define measurable outcomes for trading partners, exempt products not commercially available domestically, and establish ‘off ramps’ to reassess tariffs based on success metrics or unintended impacts, which will help enable American businesses’ success.”
Read the full survey results here.
Read a blog post about these results here.
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About the NFTC
The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) is the premier business association advancing trade, tax, national security and supply chain policies that support access to the global marketplace. Founded in 1914, NFTC promotes an open, rules-based global economy on behalf of a diverse membership of U.S.-based businesses, who account for over $6 trillion in revenue and employ nearly 6 million people in the United States.
