Bank of America CEO Predicts Tariffs Will Ease in 2026

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan is forecasting an easing of tariff-related tensions next year.

Moynihad said during an interview Sunday (Dec. 28) with CBS News that he thinks the President Donald Trump administration will commit to “de-escalation, not escalation,” with an average of 15% tariffs. He also said he expects higher rates for countries that won’t agree to U.S. purchases or to lowering non-tariff barriers.

“To go from a 10% across the board to 15% for the broad base of countries, not a huge impact,” Moynihan said. “And that’s where our team says it’s starting to de-escalate.”

He added that China is “a different question because [of] the national security interests, the rare earth minerals … AI, all that stuff,” as is Mexico.

“But broadly in the world, you can see sort of the endpoint here…,” Moynihan told Margaret Brennan of CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Moynihan’s bank is the United States’ largest small business lender, and Moynihan said small business customers are facing issues beyond just tariffs, such as labor shortages.

“Because the immigration policies haven’t settled in yet, and that’s causing people concern,” he said. “It’s not that they agree with them or are disagreeing. They just need to have the answer, and that’s what they’re looking for.”

Middle-market companies are hurting as well, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Tariffs Turn Up the Heat as Product Leaders Confront Peak Uncertainty.” Based on an October survey of product chiefs at U.S. firms with $100 million to $1 billion in yearly revenue, the report found that almost half of product leaders at goods-producing companies said tariffs are impacting their business finances.

“At the same time, companies are navigating an information vacuum,” PYMNTS wrote Dec. 22. “The federal government’s decision to cancel the advance estimate of third-quarter GDP, combined with a delayed retail sales report that ultimately showed slowing consumer spending, has left firms without reliable signals about demand or economic momentum.”

Tariffs were among the reasons that this year “rewrote the realities of global trade” in several ways, PYMNTS reported separately on Dec. 22.

“One of the bigger supply chain stories of 2025 wasn’t the existence of tariffs themselves, but how quickly seemingly minor blind spots in vendor oversight turned into material financial, legal and reputational threats,” the report said.