Tariff Tally: The Billions Vanishing From S&P 500 Balance Sheets

Tariff risks and uncertainty have become systemic to businesses.

Over 2,000 publicly traded companies in the United States mentioned tariffs during their quarterly earnings calls this year, the most in recorded history, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to estimates from JPMorgan, the average effective tariff rate in the U.S. now stands at nearly 16%, up from 2.3% at the end of last year.

As sectoral tariffs continue to be imposed, the bank projected that the effective U.S. tariff rate will approach 18% to 20% by the end of the year.

The drumbeat of trade announcements from the U.S. White House, as well as other nations, has resulted in an economic drag widespread and sector-specific, shaping margins, pricing strategies and capital allocation decisions across the market.

These aren’t just penny stocks. For the S&P 500, which derives roughly 40% of its revenue from overseas markets, the duties represent not an episodic compliance exercise but a core dimension of competitive strategy.

Blue-chip companies like Ford, General Motors, Tesla, Nike, Kraft Heinz, FedEx and Apple each reported 9- to 10-figure headwinds due to tariffs during their most recent earnings calls.

Executives repeatedly flagged two intertwined themes on their calls. The first was that tariff exposure is sticky rather than transient, reflecting entrenched supply chain dependencies. The second was that the pricing power required to offset tariffs is unevenly distributed across industries.

As a result, some sectors pass costs along to consumers quickly, while others absorb them in margins or scramble to reroute supply lines.

Read also: With Trade War Back on, CFOs and Product Chiefs Reset and Reboot

Tariffs as a Structural Cost Lead to Uneven Exposure, Common Anxiety

The automotive sector has become a bellwether for tariff pressure because its global production networks are tightly interwoven. Ford said it expects a higher-than-expected tariff hit of $2 billion for 2025, while GM maintained a tariff impact of $4 billion to $5 billion for the year.

Both companies signaled plans to accelerate supplier diversification and regionalize certain assembly operations but acknowledged that these shifts will take multiple years to yield cost relief.

“[W]e are making solid progress on our mitigation efforts and remain on track to offset at least 30% of this impact, with roughly one-third coming from each of our key actions, manufacturing adjustments, targeted cost initiatives and consistent pricing,” GM Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July.

Tesla estimated a $200 million hit from tariffs for 2025. On the European front, Jeep maker Stellantis’ North America shipments dropped 25% year over year in the second quarter.

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. This is not a mere reshuffling of SKUs but a fundamental rethinking of what gets made, where and for whom.

See also: Trump’s Global Tariffs Position CFOs as New Supply Chain Architects

Tariffs Evolve From Temporary Headwind to Strategic Variable

In consumer-facing sectors, the tariff debate often turns on elasticity of demand. Nike said its business will likely take a $1.5 billion hit from tariffs, up from an estimated $1 billion.

Hasbro said on its first-quarter earnings call in April that tariffs remain a hurdle but will cost less than expected. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks said during the call that the company is accelerating a “$1 billion cost-savings plan to offset tariff pressures internally.”

When Kraft Heinz reported second-quarter earnings in July, it lowered full-year guidance, highlighting that tariffs are expected to affect the company’s financial performance by approximately 100 basis points this year. It also announced that it is splitting into two companies.

Procter & Gamble said during its fourth-quarter earnings report in July that tariffs are projected to cost the company $1 billion before tax for fiscal year 2026. FedEx said Sept. 18 that it faces a $1 billion headwind in its current fiscal year due to the global trade environment.

For the technology sector, tariffs collide directly with ongoing supply chain reshuffling. Apple reported headwinds nearing the multibillion-dollar range. In the next quarter alone, the technology giant predicts tariff-related costs of $1.1 billion.

For enterprise and industrial players, the math is more complex. B2B contracts are often multi-year and volume-based, with negotiated escalation clauses, and companies must decide how much of the tariff burden to absorb, how much to pass through, and how much to renegotiate. These shifts can require reworking supplier agreements, rethinking geographical sourcing and reshaping logistics footprints, all under the glare of investor expectations and fixed-horizon margins.

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