Tariff and inflation fog

A company can have the customer, the budget, and the sales team ready, and still watch a deal stall because nobody knows whether a 10 percent import tax will still be there when the shipment lands. On April 10, the U.S. Court of International Trade heard a challenge to the Trump administration’s new global tariff, which took effect on February 24 after the Supreme Court struck down an earlier tariff program. (nytimes.com, usnews.com) This new tariff is a flat surcharge on imports from all countries, not a narrow penalty aimed at one product or one rival country. The White House says it used Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows a temporary import duty of up to 15 percent, and set the rate at 10 percent starting at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on February 24. (whitehouse.gov, ey.com) The legal problem is that this tariff arrived only hours after the Supreme Court said the president could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the earlier round of tariffs. States and small businesses now argue that the replacement tariff also stretches presidential power too far, so importers are pricing goods while the rules are still being fought over in court. (bdo.com, nytimes.com) That uncertainty is not abstract paperwork. SCOTUSblog reported in March that more than 2,000 refund suits had already been filed in the Court of International Trade, and companies including FedEx, Costco, L’Oréal, Dyson, and Nissan North America were seeking money back on tariffs they say were unlawfully collected. (scotusblog.com) So a procurement team looking at a purchase order now has to model two moving targets at once. One target is the tariff line on the invoice, because a 10 percent duty can vanish, survive, or later turn into a refund claim, and the other target is the customer’s willingness to pay if broader prices keep rising. (nytimes.com, scotusblog.com) The second shock hit on the same day as the tariff hearing. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Consumer Price Index rose 0.9 percent in March and 3.3 percent from a year earlier, which was the highest annual inflation reading since April 2024. (bls.gov, cnbc.com) Most of that jump came from energy, not from a broad wave of price increases across everything people buy. CNBC reported that the energy index rose 10.9 percent in March, gasoline jumped 21.2 percent, and core inflation, which strips out food and energy, was 2.6 percent year over year. (cnbc.com, bls.gov) NBC News tied that spike to the war with Iran, which sent gas prices sharply higher before an announced ceasefire helped calm oil markets in April. That means finance departments are revising budgets with one set of fuel assumptions for March and another set for April, even before they decide what tariff cost to plug into the same spreadsheet. (nbcnews.com, cnbc.com) This is how deals get slower without demand actually disappearing. A buyer who still wants factory equipment, electronics, or packaging materials may ask for a shorter quote, a tariff pass-through clause, or a re-bid in 30 days, because the landed cost and the customer’s own cost base are both moving at once. (nytimes.com, forbes.com) The calendar makes the fog worse. Trade advisers note that Section 122 tariffs are temporary and run for 150 days, which points to late July 2026 unless Congress acts, so companies are making second-quarter and third-quarter purchasing decisions against a policy that already has an expiration clock on it. (ey.com, internationaltradeinsights.com) That leaves importers in a familiar 2026 position: pay the tariff now, preserve the paperwork, watch the court docket, and keep rewriting forecasts every time oil moves. When legal risk and energy risk arrive in the same week, even a healthy pipeline starts to feel like a maybe. (nytimes.com, nbcnews.com, scotusblog.com)