The list of major companies making changes ahead of Trump’s return to the White House

Donald Trump made several campaign promises that could pose major headaches for importers.

Businesses aren’t just bracing for change under a second Donald Trump presidency — they’re already announcing actions.

Executives at companies from Warby Parker to Traeger to Yeti say they’re adjusting their businesses in consideration of some of Trump’s campaign promises.

Discussion of tariffs on earnings calls is reaching its highest levels since 2020, according to data from the market-intelligence platform AlphaSense. This week alone, the topic was mentioned in calls with nearly 300 companies around the world and across a wide variety of industries.

Here is an overview of how some household names are shaking up their businesses, from shuffling sourcing strategies to passing along anticipated cost increases to customers.

Yeti

Yeti brand cooler outdoors, Pleasant Hill, California, October, 2022.

Yeti’s CFO, Michael McMullen, said the company was on track to bring its drinkware production to 50% manufactured outside China by the end of next year.

In addition, he said the company was working with suppliers and trying to identify new ones to find solutions.

Still, McMullen did not rule out raising prices for customers.

“We’ll have to see as we go through this, but I think we would look at price potentially as an option to offset any potential tariff risk,” he said. “So basically, we’re focused on the things that we can control.”

Steve Madden

Steve Madden CEO Edward Rosenfeld said the company planned to cut its sourcing of goods from China from about 70% down to below 45%.

“We’ve worked hard over a multiyear period to develop our factory base and our sourcing capability in alternative countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil,” he said. “As of yesterday morning, we are putting that plan into motion.”

Warby Parker

Warby Parker. 

Warby Parker’s cofounder and CEO, Neil Blumenthal, said Thursday that the eyewear brand had been reducing its exposure to China for five years and continued to do so.

“We believe we have the ability to flex even further into other regions and work with our vendors to offset tariffs as much as possible,” he added, saying that tariffs represented about one-fifth of the company’s product costs.

Traeger Grills

Traeger CEO Jeremy Andrus said that while about 80% of the company’s grills are manufactured in China and 20% in Vietnam, wood-pellet grills are not subject to tariffs.

“I think it’s going to take a little bit of time to sort out exactly the new administration strategy,” he said, “but I would say that we have been building optionality around — in our sourcing model.”

Andrus added that the company was exploring so-called near-shoring options, like production in Mexico, and that the US was “not a viable manufacturing source” for the product category.

ELF Beauty

ELF Beauty is a beauty brand based in the US.

Mandy Fields, the CFO of ELF Beauty, said Wednesday the company dealt with 25% tariffs in 2019, when nearly all its products were imported from China.

Now that trade volume has been reduced to 80%, she said, while the company’s international sales (which aren’t subject to US tariffs) are growing rapidly.

“Given the length of our supply chain, this is something that would potentially hit us later in 2026,” CEO Tarang Amin added, saying that the company had multiple ways to navigate new costs, including selective price hikes.

BarkBox

BarkBox CEO Matt Meeker said the company has been thinking about tariffs for more than a year, calling this week “a bit of Groundhog Day” for the pet-supply company.

“In 2016, we had the same kind of fire drill around, ‘What do we do if he’s elected and if he puts the tariffs in place?'” Meeker said.

While BarkBox’s pet foods are sourced domestically, he said its toy offerings are sourced from China and could be subjected to tariffs.

He said the company would likely try to absorb those costs, while trying to expand its customer base.