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President Trump has now announced then delayed new tariffs several times. And if fully implemented, they are expected to lead to much higher prices, which would be bad for the U.S. economy. But many business leaders say they're optimistic. NPR business correspondent Maria Aspan reports.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: American businesses are feeling the whiplash of President Trump's new tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China. Just listen to CNBC this week.
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EAMON JAVERS: The president said those 25% tariffs will go into effect tomorrow.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The White House will be giving automakers - any cars in North America - a one-month delay on the tariffs that they had just announced this week.
MEGAN CASSELLA: Some major tariff relief coming for Mexico, at this point. The president...
ASPAN: So corporate America, like the rest of us, doesn't know what to expect. On Wall Street, markets swung up and down this week.
ANNA TAVIS: Businesses don't like uncertainty.
ASPAN: Anna Tavis runs NYU's Department of Human Capital Management, where she talks to executives across corporate America. And as she points out, there's been a lot of uncertainty. Some businesses are really worried about the tariffs becoming permanent, especially the automakers, retailers and other consumer-facing companies that would be directly affected. This week, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry warned that price increases for American consumers are, quote, "highly likely."
CORIE BARRY: We've never seen this kind of breadth of tariffs, and this, of course, impacts the whole industry.
ASPAN: Yet at the same time, business leaders have been saying they feel pretty great about the economy in general. In fact, CEO confidence is at a three-year high, according to The Conference Board. It regularly polls the heads of the largest U.S. companies, and it finished its latest survey on February 10, after Trump had first announced, then first delayed, the details of his new tariffs.
STEPHANIE GUICHARD: I know people were surprised that we see this increase in CEO confidence at the time that tariffs may have a negative impact on the economy.
ASPAN: That's Stephanie Guichard. She's a senior economist at The Conference Board, and she says that many of the CEOs surveyed said they were worried about tariffs, but they're more focused on Trump's other business-friendly promises.
GUICHARD: They are not thinking so much about tariffs. They are thinking about deregulation. They are thinking about lower taxes.
ASPAN: Take Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon. When he talked to CNBC right after Trump's inauguration, he called the impact of tariffs - yep - uncertain. But he also said this...
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DAVID SOLOMON: The U.S. economy is in pretty good shape, and it's not going to be a smooth, perfect path. But people are optimistic that we are going to run a more growth-prone agenda.
ASPAN: Meanwhile, NYU's Tavis points out that there are big risks and limited rewards for executives who publicly criticize Trump or his policies. And in general, she says, part of a CEO's job is to project confidence in their own businesses, in the markets and in the broader economy.
CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, NYU: They have no control over what the government is going to do, regardless of how they feel. Obviously, they want to be, you know, on the winning side of whatever happens.
ASPAN: So CEOs have good reasons to look for the upside, while they and everyone else, waits to see what actually happens next.
Maria Aspan, NPR News, New York.
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