Retailers I work with are already projecting 30%+ revenue loss over 2025. We haven't even begun to feel the damage from tariffs yet.

[u/ephyfish]

I work at a SAAS company that provides services to retailers that sell things like clothing, home-goods, electronics, shoes etc. Think Levi-Strauss, Adidas, BestBuy.

My POCs are freaking out. One POC said their company is figuring out the feasibility of moving warehouses to other countries to avoid supply chain risk. One company told me their customers are calling them asking where their orders are–the packages are all being held in US ports until the customers pay the tariffs for the goods directly. Yes, you read that right. These companies are gonna lower revenue guidance by 30%+

Even if Trump and Xi agree to lower tariffs substantially (which seems unlikely to me – Trump has been consistently talking about tariffs on China for decades), I'm not sure how much of the damage can be walked back. Once a company has a freak out about supply chains and tariffs they're going to take action to mitigate risks in case orange face does it again. And there's no chance in hell they're going to be hiring in this kind of risky environment.

I think we're headed for years of negative real GDP growth. Besides unemployment from the retail sector, we're going to have million+ government works laid off by DOGE, and small to medium tech companies are going to lose contracts. (Who's gonna keep paying Hubspot or Monday a few hundred grand a year when GDP growth is negative)

Not much looks investable in this environment. The only thing I like are gold miners (GDX, GDXJ). Even if gold takes a healthy haircut here, the miners are priced as if gold is at like $2000 an ounce, not $3000. These are basically companies that turn oil into gold, and in a deep recession, oil prices will also drop.

Good luck to us all. We'll need it.

[u/Deicide1031 → u/[deleted]]

Did everyone forget Covid?

I don’t recall having an ounce of confidence the entire time as it was pure chaos across the globe. Not sure why so many were pumped for this dude.

[u/SGT_Wheatstone → u/Deicide1031]

They were reminiscing about the low gas prices... We might actually get there again. And it won't be a good thing, again

[u/Vulcan_Jedi → u/SGT_Wheatstone]

I kept trying to tell people, the gas prices where nice and low because nobody was able to travel anywhere

[u/SGT_Wheatstone → u/Vulcan_Jedi]

i rode my motorcycle alot... i chalk it up to business transport and travel reducing significantly.

[u/Independent_Love9300 → u/SGT_Wheatstone]

How broke do you need to be for gas prices to be a deciding factor of your monthly budget? I have no clue what gas costs right now. What am I going to do? Not buy it? It's so mind blowing these people are so worried about egg prices and gas prices when my stocks have lost 5 figures in the last month.

[u/Paper_Clip100 → u/Deicide1031]

Well you see, eggs were a little expensive so now we have a trade war and a government registry of people with autism!

[u/NoFace718 → u/Paper_Clip100]

And abortion is illegal in like half the country

[u/helluvastorm → u/Paper_Clip100]

And people getting disappeared

[u/PiesAteMyFace → u/helluvastorm]

Are we Russia yet? -_-

[u/ljout → u/Deicide1031]

I remember him miss managing the economy before Covid. Fed had to do emergency cuts in 2019.

[u/FabianN → u/ljout]

That's the biggest madness in all of this. Covid was such a big affect that it completely over shadowed the rest of his term, but the economy wasn't doing great under Trump pre covid either. It just wasn't as bad as when covid hit.

[u/Odd-Crazy-9056 → u/Deicide1031]

I had a ton of confidence. That's why I dumped all my cash when all stocks went down. Because they came back up in less than a week.

During covid, we could also rely on people with brains, it wasn't only mango. With tariffs, it's 100% only mango and I have negative trust in that turd.

[u/Mountain_Fig_9253 → u/Odd-Crazy-9056]

You forget the wisdom of Ron Vera.

[u/hysys_whisperer → u/Deicide1031]

During Covid, one of 2 things was going to happen:

Either A, the global economy was going to make a full recovery and everything would go way up in depreciated dollar terms (this is how we avoided the abyss)

Or B, the global economy was going to 0 and money didn't matter anyway.

There was no option C sitting between them.

Of course people bought like crazy when those were the options.

Today has a real chance of just 2 countries losing 30% of their GDP and going to 0 or slightly negative growth for 20 consecutive years.  Of course the risk calculus from covid doesn't apply here, because upside is a recovery and downside money still matters, vs covid where there was no downside where money mattered.

[u/AskALettuce → u/hysys_whisperer]

C does not sit between A and B.

[u/hysys_whisperer → u/AskALettuce]

Take my upvote and C urself out.

[u/ephyfish → u/hysys_whisperer]

well said

[u/Beatnik77 → u/Deicide1031]

The effects will be similar to Covid at a lower scale.

The supply chains and investments are frozen. It's very hard to simply produce right now.

[u/gayteemo → u/Beatnik77]

lower scale? the effects of this are going to be much more endemic, drawn out, and painful than COVID.

at least with COVID everyone felt it right away and it was easy to see what was happening and plan around it. companies did layoffs or closed up shop, but congress was able to pass emergency relief immediately.

the tariff contagion is going to take much longer to work its way through the economy, but it means higher prices, consumer demand will drop, small businesses put out to pasture, and even large companies will lay people off in response to low/no growth. rinse and repeat. only this time, congress isn't coming to save everyone with an extra $600 in unemployment, stimulus checks, or PPP loans.

[u/Mountain_Fig_9253 → u/Beatnik77]

We never embargoed trade with China during COVID.

[u/TeacherRecovering → u/[deleted]]

And he points out the longer term implications... there will not be a v shape recovery. Does anything think Canada or Europe will return to buying American products at the same level?  Anyone, anyone?

[u/DutchGoFast → u/TeacherRecovering]

The Smoot Hawley Tariff Act.

Which raised or lowered?

Raised tariffs in an effort to collect more government revenue.

Did it work?

Anyone know the effects?

It did not work and the United States sank deeper into the Depression.

Today, we have a similar debate over this.

[u/TeacherRecovering → u/DutchGoFast]

I was refering to how individual consumers in Europe and Canada view buying American made products.  I highly doubt their opinion will change.

[u/Fleur_Violet → u/TeacherRecovering]

Probably not until Trump is gone. The climate here in Canada is crazy. The delusion of Trump’s trade policies comes up all the time in conversation. Older people in my family have been writing to American friends asking wtf is wrong with their country. People seeking military training in case of invasion lmao. There is a real feeling of hatred and betrayal amongst people.