With US President Trump’s tariff regime approaching first-anniversary milestones in the coming weeks and months, corporate treasury teams at American companies are forming a clearer picture of the true cost of the levies and the efficacy of their mitigation efforts.
It is clear US importers and downstream consumers are bearing most of the cost of the new tariffs – as much as 96%, according to a study of bill of lading and other data by the Kiel Institute of the World Economy in Germany announced on 19th January.
US Customs and Border Protection said Trump’s new tariffs, instituted via 40 executive orders, added more than US$200bn to the Treasury in 2025. On a company-by-company basis, tariff impacts vary and the mitigation strategies differ based on exposure, supply chain alternatives, ability to pass the costs onto consumers, and overall financial situation.
The treasury team at Masco Corp. is coping with an estimated US$270m annual cost from tariffs, mainly on Chinese imports and the so-called “reciprocal” levies on nations with which the US had wide trade deficits upon Trump’s return to the White House.
Masco provides premium home improvement items ranging from Peerless Faucets to Behr paints. During the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call in October, analysts heard the details from Richard Westenberg, Masco’s Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Among the highest impact are US duties on metals and glass, plus the generalised reciprocal tariffs on Vietnam, Thailand, the European Union and other nations.
“Of the US$270m annualised cost impact, approximately US$140m continues to be related to the incremental 30% China tariffs. And the remaining US$130m is driven by the global reciprocal tariffs, the 50% tariff on steel, aluminum and copper and the glass antidumping duties,” Westenberg said.
“Our teams continue to work actively to mitigate these additional costs through a combination of levers,” Westenberg added. “These include cost reductions, continued efforts to change our sourcing footprint and pricing where necessary.”
On a much smaller but still impactful scale, Boston Beer Co. said tariffs added an estimated US$7.1m to its cost structure in the first nine months of 2025. CFO and Treasurer Diego Reynoso quantified the impact on financial results: full-year guidance of US$9m to US$13m in “unfavorable impact” from tariffs, which caused a “gross margin headwind of 40 to 60 basis points” in an otherwise growing profit outlook for the maker of Samuel Adams beer and Angry Orchard cider.
Boston Beer sources some materials from Canada, for example. As opposed to cutting costs as an offset, negative tariff impacts are one factor in a decision to boost promotional spending.
“Given our strong margin performance, we are using some of the upside to increase our advertising investments in our brands,” Reynoso said during his company’s Q3 earnings call. “We now expect increases in advertising, promotional and selling expenses to range from US$50m to US$60m, an increase from our previous estimate of US$30m to US$50m.”
Many companies have limited options for reshoring even if they wanted to find American suppliers. Seasoning maker McCormick & Co. sources 17,000 ingredients from 80 nations where particular agricultural items are grown. Even with tariff exposure now reduced by an estimated 50% since the initial presidential orders, McCormick still faces US$50m in tariff costs in 2026, according to Marcos Gabriel, the company’s Executive Vice President and CFO.
“We plan to mitigate the vast majority of this impact with productivity savings across the P&L, alternative sourcing, supply chain initiatives and, of course, leverage our revenue management capabilities, including surgical pricing,” Gabriel explained during McCormick’s fourth-quarter earnings call on 22nd January.
And, as McCormick pursues these mitigation strategies, the F-suite realises the landscape can still change with the stroke of a pen at the White House or a ruling from the Supreme Court, whose decision on the constitutionality of some emergency tariffs is imminent.
“As you know, this is an evolving situation,” Gabriel said.
