CEOs Treat Tariffs as Permanent

Chief executives are no longer treating tariffs as a short-term Trump policy; they are budgeting for them as a lasting cost of doing business. (fortune.com) Fortune, citing a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 633 United States executives conducted in March 2026, reported that 86% now treat tariffs as a “permanent planning assumption.” The same PricewaterhouseCoopers report said 29% of chief executives expect tariffs to cut profit margins over the next 12 months. (fortune.com, pwc.com) That shift is already reaching store shelves. Fox 5 Las Vegas reported on April 14 that Yale University’s Budget Lab expects fresh produce prices to rise nearly 5%, while independent grocers say they have less room than national chains to absorb higher import costs. (fox5vegas.com, budgetlab.yale.edu) The planning change comes after a year of churn in trade policy. The Tax Policy Center said the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs in February 2026, but other Trump tariffs remained in place and new ones followed under different legal authorities. (taxpolicycenter.org) One of those replacements is a temporary global import surcharge. The White House said on February 20 that Trump imposed a 10% duty for 150 days under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, and the Federal Register said that law allows a surcharge of up to 15% for no more than 150 days unless Congress extends it. (whitehouse.gov, federalregister.gov) At the same time, the tariff load remains historically high. Yale’s Budget Lab estimated on April 8 that the average effective United States tariff rate stood at 11.8%, the highest since the early 1940s excluding 2025, and said the rate would still be 9.7% later this year after the Section 122 duties expire and pharmaceutical tariffs take effect. (budgetlab.yale.edu) The Tax Policy Center estimated that tariffs announced through December 4, 2025 would add about $1,050 to the average household’s 2026 tax burden, and it said lower-income households would see a bigger increase in their effective federal tax rate than top-quintile households. (taxpolicycenter.org) PricewaterhouseCoopers’ broader 2026 chief executive survey points to the same boardroom response: less confidence in near-term revenue growth, more focus on multiyear planning, and more time spent on immediate threats. Tariffs now sit in that category alongside macroeconomic volatility and geopolitical conflict. (pwc.com) So even with court fights, shifting statutes, and a July 24, 2026 expiration date on the current Section 122 surcharge, executives are acting as if import taxes will keep resurfacing in one form or another. Consumers are already seeing the first, smaller version of that assumption in grocery aisles. (federalregister.gov, fox5vegas.com)