That reality is shifting profits around and increasingly off companies’ balance sheets.
The trade spat with China is itself back on as a November exemption deadline looms. Additional tariffs on kitchen cabinets, vanities, lumber, timber and certain upholstered furniture imported to the United States are in effect as of Tuesday (Oct. 14); and Brazil is planning to sit down with the U.S. Thursday (Oct. 16) to negotiate trade.
While economists at Goldman Sachs have said that U.S. consumers will ultimately bear more than half of the total cost of the U.S. tariff regime, the biggest impact on many multinationals’ bottom lines this financial quarter hasn’t been innovations like artificial intelligence, but margins lost to tariffs.
Across sectors and geographies, tariff shocks showed up in companies’ numbers, their language on conference calls, and in the cautious tone of forward guidance. From luxury autos to apparel, retail to energy services, this quarter’s most recent earnings results offered a vivid snapshot of how firms are navigating a trade environment that remains volatile, unpredictable and materially consequential.
Read also: Tariff Tally: The Billions Vanishing From S&P 500 Balance Sheets
Advertisement: Scroll to Continue
Auto and Apparel Look for Airbags as Tariffs Crash Into Supply Chains
Perhaps one of the starkest examples of tariff pressure came from Aston Martin, which cited a projected operating loss of over $140 million. The British automaker slashed its guidance after reporting third-quarter deliveries that fell 13% year over year, blaming weak demand across North America and Asia and, most pointedly, disruption from U.S. import tariffs.
The situation isn’t much better elsewhere across the auto industry, with the three biggest carmakers in the U.S., including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, now projecting a combined $7 billion tariff-related hit to their 2025 earnings.
It isn’t just tariffs hampering the auto supply chain, either. A Sept. 16 fire at a crucial aluminum plant in upstate New York led to Ford temporarily cut production of at least five of its models.
In the apparel world, Fast Retailing, owner of Uniqlo, posted a record operating profit. But in remarks before the earnings print, Fast Retailing founder and CEO Tadashi Yanai warned that U.S. tariffs ultimately hurt U.S. consumers most, an implicit recognition of the passthrough dilemma.
PYMNTS Intelligence found that 1 in 3 U.S. consumers said a retailer explicitly cited tariffs as the reason for higher prices, while another nearly 25% heard vague references to “increased costs.”
At Levi Strauss, management said tariffs will likely erode gross margin by as much as 130 basis points, and signaled a 100 basis-point decline in margin. The company framed these impacts as embedded in current planning, rather than as a sudden surprise. It advanced 70% of its holiday inventory and modestly raised prices to hedge, yet still admitted that the tariff drag is baked into its Q4 outlook.
Shein warned investors Wednesday (Oct. 15) that President Donald Trump’s China tariffs, whatever they end up being, will have a yet-to-be-quantified impact on its bottom line.
Baker Hughes, for its part, said it sees its business taking more than $100 million in tariff-related hits. CEOs of other firms in energy and infrastructure have also publicly flagged tariff-driven cost inflation as a near-term limiter.
See also: Uncertainty Is Complicated, but Working Capital Strategies Should Be Simple
Patterns and Strategies for the Tariff Tightrope
The most apparent trend from the most recent earnings is that tariff impact is no longer hypothetical.
Companies are not merely signaling exposure. In many cases, they’re quantifying the cost, embedding it into forecasts, and reworking supply and sourcing strategies. That shift matters, as it forces trade risk from footnote to planning horizon.
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “What Uncertainty Means: U.S. Goods Firms Retool Product Plans Amid Tariffs” found that nearly 1 in 4 product leaders said they switched up their product design, pricing or go-to-market strategy in response to tariffs. The report also found that 92.6% of goods firms are seeing higher raw-material costs, and nearly three-quarters said they were seeing shortages or delays in getting certain products.
The margin math is no longer just about scale or product mix; it now includes policy outcomes and trade negotiation cycles as core elements of execution. Management teams repeatedly flagged the difficulty in forecasting and capital planning under a shifting tariff regime.
Certain sectors must also consider at what point the customer stops absorbing price increases. In apparel and consumer goods, repeated tariff-driven price hikes risk triggering demand elasticity reversal. That tension can constrain how far margin erosion can be offset by pricing.
PYMNTS Intelligence, cited by PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, showed that over 80% of consumers have already modified their spending in anticipation of higher prices, with the average shopper making nearly five changes to their purchasing habits.
