A Look at Some of the Creative Ways Companies Try to Dodge High Tariffs
11th March 2025
NPR, a Voice of the Crust at your expense.
As concerns swirl over the impacts of steep new tariffs on U.S. companies and consumers, so too does talk about how certain businesses try to avoid them.
‘Certain’ businesses? ALL businesses will try to avoid them; some more successfully than others.
President Trump’s long-threatened taxes on imports from China, Mexico and Canada took effect Tuesday, prompting retaliatory measures on American exports, roiling the stock market and fueling fears of an economic downturn.
Underscoring the fact that interference with trade is always an Unfriendly Act.
On Wednesday, Trump granted automakers a one-month reprieve from the tariffs, underscoring the unpredictability — and potential wiggle room — in his administration’s trade policy. On Thursday, he signed executive orders lifting tariffs on many Mexican and Canadian goods until April 2.
Trump is not a politician, and therefore not concerned much with ‘predictability’. He’s a businessman, and ‘wiggle room’ is what business is all about.
“I’m really interested to see how much of these threatened tariffs stick, and how many of our big industries will be able to get immediate reprieves like the auto industry has already done,” says Mary Anne Madeira, an assistant professor of international relations at Lehigh University. “And I’m hopeful that industries will get a lot of big carveouts and exemptions in a way that will really reduce the potential pain.”
Looks as if they had to reach way down the academic food chain to find somebody who would give them the credentialed comment they were looking for.