Businesses need to make decisions regarding purchases and sales months in advance and to have stable supply chains. The threat of tariffs disrupts their ability to do that.
Here's a tip. Forget your cheap Chinese labor, imported junk. Come up with a new plan.
Diversify your sources: Viet Nam, Laos, etc., offer cheap labor as well
"We’re coming up on the holiday season for retailers and we’re well into the manufacturing cycle for that time and we have to deal with all of this uncertainty," Sage Chandler, vice president of international trade for the Consumer Technology Association, told the Washington Examiner. "They don’t know if they can get things to customers in time or if they have to figure in price increases and then be noncompetitive with others from outside the U.S."
September and October are the busiest months for the retail industry, noted Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation. "Retail is trying to figure out what is next and what steps they can take to mitigate things ‐ if at all. For example, the president’s Sept. 1 date to start the tariffs: Does that meet when goods enter the U.S., or when they leave their port?"
