Tackling tariffs: What some companies are saying, and doing, about tariffs

By DAMIAN TROISE Associated Press New York AP Companies from a wide range of industries are having trouble assessing the impact of tariffs because of the constant uncertainty over whether and where the taxes will be imposed next or postponed sometimes on a daily or weekly basis Specific tariffs remain in place against key U S trading partners but others have been postponed to give nations time to negotiate As a product companies have been giving somewhat shaky financial forecasts during their latest round of earnings updates Here s how several big companies are dealing with the tariff confusion Kimberly-Clark The Irving Texas company makes Huggies Kleenex and other personal care and household staples It expects tariffs to add million of costs and has warned about flat earnings for the year The current atmosphere will now mean greater costs across our global supply chain versus our expectations at the beginning of the year revealed CEO Michael Hsu in a message Tuesday following the company s latest earnings results Roughly of Kimberly-Clark s U S costs are exposed to tariffs The bulk of its estimated million cost impact is being driven by U S tariffs against China The company is working to shift selected of its supply chain to mitigate the costs M William Brown CEO of M Co the maker of adhesives coatings Scotch Tape and Post-it notes acknowledged that tariffs are going to be a headwind this year The company stuck to a full-year forecast for profit of to per share excluding the impact of tariffs But M did include a slide in its presentation for analysts with a tariff impact sensitivity that it announced could lower earnings by cents to cents per share after factoring in measures that will somewhat reduce the hit from tariffs Those procedures could include cost cuts and selective price increases where feasible Brown also announced during a conference call that the company is looking at alternative production sites with different countries of origin to try and minimize the tariff impact RTX Largest part of the RTX s industrial base and supply chain is located inside the U S but tariffs are still poised to hurt the defense company behind missile and radar systems RTX expects up to million in cost impacts from tariffs imposed on Canada Mexico China and other nations It hasn t included the anticipated impact in its earnings forecast Generally speaking the aerospace and defense sector has operated in a duty-free atmosphere mentioned President Christopher Calio in a conference call with analysts And that has been instrumental to the industry maintaining one of the largest agreement surpluses across American manufacturing industries for decades GE Aerospace The maker of jet engines and aviation systems is also accustomed to low pact barricades within the aviation sector The company now expects tariff costs of roughly million after hopefully mitigating specific of the impact through programs and strategies such as expanding foreign transaction zones We ll continue to advocate for an approach that reestablishes zero-for-zero tariffs in the aviation sector and ensures a level playing field for the U S aerospace industry noted CEO H Lawrence Culp Jr in a conference call with analysts In the meantime heightened tariffs will effect in additional costs for us and our supply chain Flexsteel Industries The furniture company could see much more damage from a mix of tariffs and a downturn in consumer spending Flexsteel has moved out of China but Vietnam supports about of its revenue while operations in Mexico sponsorship almost of sales the company revealed If the reciprocal tariff rate on Vietnam which is at present delayed goes into effect it will have wide-reaching implications both on Flexsteel s business and the overall U S furniture industry revealed President and CEO Derek Schmidt in a conference call with analysts Those wide-ranging impacts could include a weaker U S market brought on by stunted consumer spending The company expects sales between million and million during its current quarter but that could change depending on shifts in tariffs and consumer demand