What Wall Street's CEOs Are Saying About Trump's Tariffs

President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff plans have thrown Wall Street into a tailspin. Both the stock and bond markets have been selling off and corporations are pulling guidance amid the uncertainty.

“The global economic system under which most countries have operated for the last 80 years is being reset,” writes Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, economic counselor and the director of research of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “Existing rules are challenged while new ones are yet to emerge.”

The effective tariff rate in the U.S. is now at its highest level in roughly a century and is forecast to have a wide-reaching impact on the global economy.

Indeed, the IMF in late April said it expects global economic growth to rise 2.8% this year and next, down from the 3% it forecast in January. This includes tariff announcements made by the U.S. and its trading partners between February 1 and April 4.

For reference, global economic growth rose 3.3% in 2024.

Gourinchas notes that the Trump administration’s 90-day pause on most tariffs and “prohibitive” tariffs on Chinese imports “does not materially change” the IMF’s outlook.

S&P 500 targets are revised lower amid tariff uncertainty

Meanwhile, several investment firms have lowered their outlooks for where the S&P 500 is likely to be at year’s end, including LPL Financial.

“With little visibility into where tariff rates shake out and the effects on earnings, it’s hard to have much conviction in a year-end S&P 500 target,” say Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist, and Jeffrey Buchbinder, chief equity strategist at LPL Financial.

The strategists’ year-end fair value target for the S&P 500 heading into 2025 was 6,275 to 6,375, which they say was “rightly well below consensus … but now is too high based on the new tariff regime.”

They now expect the S&P 500 to end the year around 5,700, which represents implied upside of roughly 3% to current levels and a decline of 3% from its 2024 close.

With this in mind, we thought it would be helpful to investors to see what some of Wall Street‘s top CEOs and chief financial officers (CFOs) are saying about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, which could impact a company’s financials – and its share price – down the road.

3M

Industrial conglomerate 3M (MMM) makes a variety of products for consumers and businesses, from Post-it Notes to stethoscopes to insulation.

The company beat top- and bottom line expectations for its first quarter and gave two sets of guidance for 2025 – one with a “tariff sensitivity” impact.

In 3M’s earnings call, CEO Bill Brown admitted that “tariffs are going to be a headwind this year.”

He added that “with the significant footprint we have in the U.S. and the flexibility of our global network, we’re identifying a number of ideas to adjust product sourcing and logistics flows to mitigate at least a part of the impact, some of which are no-regret moves regardless of where trade policies eventually settle.”

As for the impact on 3M’s bottom line, CFO Anurag Maheshwari said that the company imports $1.6 billion into the U.S. and exports $4.1 billion from the U.S., adding that trade flow with China is roughly $600 million.

Based on tariff rates as of April 22 (125% on U.S. exports to China, 145% on Chinese exports to the U.S.), 3M will realize an “approximately $675 million of potential annualized tariff impact after anticipated exemptions,” Maheshwari noted.

Add in tariffs on products not included under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the total impact could reach $850 million before any mitigation actions,” he said.

Maheshwari said 3M will attempt to offset these headwinds through “cost and productivity initiatives [and] optimizing production and logistics.”

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) first-quarter results came in higher than Wall Street expected.

In the company’s earnings release, CEO Jamie Dimon wrote that the “economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and ‘trade wars,’ ongoing sticky inflation, high fiscal deficits and still rather high asset prices and volatility.”

As a result of this, Dimon noted in the earnings call, people and companies “are not going to be doing things” because of the impact of tariffs. Instead, they’re going to “wait and see.”

This includes things such as mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and hiring, he said.

Dimon added that if a recession were to hit – JPMorgan gives it a 50-50 chance – the big bank, which is the biggest in the U.S. by assets under management, can handle it.

“Earnings won’t be great and the stocks will go down,” he said, but noted that he would view this as “an opportunity to buy back more stock.”

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Bad weather and slowing consumer spending caused Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) to report a top-line miss and first same-store sales contraction since 2020 in Q1.

Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright noted in the company’s earnings call that signs consumers were worried about the economy began to emerge as early as February, with a visitation study highlighting this as a main reason customers were cutting back on restaurant visits.

“This trend has continued into April,” Boatwright added.

Meanwhile, Chipotle CFO Adam Rymer said the company expects cost of sales to remain in the high 29% range due in part to “higher inflation across several items” and “the impact of the newly enacted tariffs [that] included aluminum and the broad-based 10% tariff.”

The company’s Q2 guidance includes the expected impact of these tariffs, but not any that were postponed or those put in place against Mexico and Canada, since Chipotle’s “imports fall under the USMCA exemption,” Rymer said.

The CFO added that the company anticipates a “full offset by the back half of the year through several in-restaurant initiatives, including the produce slices.”

PepsiCo

PepsiCo (PEP) reported a rare earnings miss in its first quarter and lowered its full-year EPS guidance, citing concern over tariffs, the economy and consumer spending.

“As we look ahead, we expect more volatility and uncertainty, particularly related to global trade developments, which we expect will increase our supply chain costs,” said CEO Ramon Laguarta in the earnings release.

“At the same time, consumer conditions in many markets remain subdued and similarly have an uncertain outlook,” Laguarta added.

Laguarta noted that the soft drink and snack maker is “actively planning mitigation actions” where possible to address higher supply chain costs.

“Some of those we’ll be able to execute more quickly. Some of those will take more time to execute,” said James Caulfield, PepsiCo’s chief financial officer, in the company’s earnings call.

Verizon Communications

Verizon Communications (VZ) reported higher-than-expected first-quarter results and said it’s on track to meet its full-year guidance, even as Q1 postpaid phone losses totaled 289,000 – more than the 114,000 seen in the year-ago period.

When asked about tariffs in the telecommunication giant’s earnings call, CEO Hans Vestberg said that Verizon will not foot the bill on “any enormous increase on tariffs in handsets. That’s ultimately going to hit the consumer in the market.”

In other words, more price hikes on phones could be coming down the pike.

Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble (PG) also talked about price increases following its fiscal third-quarter revenue miss. The company lowered its full-year outlook too.

“We continue to expect the environment around us to remain volatile and challenging from input costs, to currencies, to consumer, competitor, retailer and geopolitical dynamics, and now tariff impacts,” said Procter & Gamble CFO Andre Schulten during his company’s earnings call.

Schulten added that the volatility is impacting consumer behavior, as well, with lots of folks choosing to pause spending, which is “reflected in retail traffic being down” and that’s weighing on P&G’s top line. Overall, P&G anticipates a $1 billion to $1.5 billion impact.

The CFO noted that “it’s clear that productivity, innovation and pricing are probably the short-term levers” the company will employ to mitigate the impact of tariffs, while “other levers” include formulation and sourcing changes.

What does this mean for investors?

During periods of market instability, market participants must remember that investing is a marathon and not a sprint – and that the long-term trend is up and to the right.

As unsettling as volatility can be, it creates opportunity for investors, writes a team of experts from BlackRock in their second-quarter equity market outlook.

“We believe some of the corrections may be overdone, causing dislocations between fundamentals and current pricing – and opening some interesting entry points and attractive prospects,” BlackRock writes, adding that “caution and selectivity are key.”

And remember, one of the main goals for investors is to buy low. So, any pullbacks in share price create an ideal time to dollar-cost average into high-quality assets.

Related content