International Chamber of Commerce: Businesses Delaying Critical Decisions Amid Tariff Uncertainty

Businesses around the world are likely to put off decisions about things like placing orders and hiring employees until the second half, when they hope to have more clarity on U.S. tariffs, the head of the International Chamber of Commerce told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The uncertainty around what the final tariffs will be is causing a greater challenge for these businesses than the 10% baseline tariff that has already been applied, John Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce said in a WSJ report posted Friday (April 11).

“That means that a lot of critical decisions about investment will be put off until the second half,” Denton said, per the report.

When PYMNTS Intelligence surveyed chief financial officers at U.S. middle-market firms in mid-February, when talk of U.S. tariffs was everywhere but the government had not formally enacted any levies, 1in 5 respondents said they would raise prices on their goods and services in response to the tariffs.

“But crucially, only a sliver said they would do so immediately as their first response to the tariffs,” the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Tariffs and Business Uncertainty: The Current State of Play, March 2025” said. “In any case, most companies hadn’t even started to plan for a global trade war.”

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster highlighted the report’s findings that 32% of these businesses said they have or will miss opportunities due to that uncertainty, 33% faced delays in getting products to market, and 31% experienced client turnover because of their own uncertain business outlooks.

“Let that sink in,” Webster wrote. “That’s roughly a third of U.S. businesses making between $100 million and $1 billion in annual revenue — and the integral bridge between the enterprise and small business supply chains — who face some sort of economic uncertainty.”

Retail giants Amazon and Walmart are recalibrating everything from procurement strategies to pricing models to remain resilient amid the newly implemented tariffs, PYMNTS reported Friday.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC Thursday (April 10) that the retailer is doing everything it can to keep prices as low as possible for its customers amid the new tariffs.

“We’ve done some strategic forward inventory buys to get as many items as makes sense for customers at lower prices,” Jassy said. “There are some cases where we have deals that were negotiated that weren’t done, where we’ll renegotiate terms to make it easier for customers to have lower prices.”