Stanley Black & Decker, Conagra say tariffs will cost hundreds of millions

Companies behind some of America’s best-known brands are warning that tariffs will raise costs by hundreds of millions of dollars as Friday’s key deadline nears.

Firms are gearing up for the long-awaited Friday deadline, when the White House says it will start imposing higher import taxes on foreign countries. Now businesses in a range of industries are saying this shakeup in global trading practices will cost them.

Tool maker Stanley Black & Decker said Tuesday it expects an $800 million annualized hit from policy changes tied to tariffs. That doesn’t include costs in connection with steps the company is taking to mitigate the effects of the levies, according to finance chief Patrick Hallinan.

For Marie Callender’s and Slim Jim parent Conagra Brands, higher tariffs are expected to raise its costs of goods sold by 3%, equivalent to an annual increase of more than $200 million, CEO Sean Connolly said earlier this month.

Most of the Chicago-based company’s production is in the U.S., but management says it still has to contend with steel and aluminum tariffs that will raise the cost of packaging.

Tesla, led by President Trump’s erstwhile ally Elon Musk, said that costs tied to tariffs have increased by about $300 million. Roughly two-thirds of that is tied to the electric vehicle maker’s auto business, while the rest is from the energy arm.

“While we are doing our best to manage these impacts, we are in an unpredictable environment on the tariff front,” finance chief Vaibhav Taneja told analysts and investors on Tesla’s earnings call last week.

Those pressures extend throughout the auto industry. General Motors said earnings before interest and taxes in the latest quarter suffered a $1.1 billion hit that the Detroit-based automaker chalked up to the net effect of tariffs.

Air conditioner maker Carrier Global said Tuesday that it now expects to spend about $200 million to offset the impact of tariffs. The same day, appliance maker Whirlpool said North American sales and earnings were hurt in the second quarter as Asian competitors rushed to export goods to the U.S. in advance of higher tariffs.

Inflation focus

U.S. consumers haven’t yet experienced meaningful bumps to inflation as a result of higher tariffs. That can be attributed to domestic companies currently absorbing cost hikes, but some economists warn that business may soon start passing the increases on to shoppers after this week’s deadline passes.

As a result, the “core” version of the consumer price index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, should rise at an annual rate of 3.2% in the third quarter, up from 2.1% in the second quarter, according to Nancy Lazar, Piper Sandler’s chief global economist.

Foreign exporters have been covering “very little” of the tariffs and have been “getting off easy,” Lazar said in a recent note to clients.

Still, not every American company is taking a hands-off approach and swallowing the higher costs.

Paul De Cock, operations chief at carpet manufacturer Mohawk Industries, said last week that it is implementing 8% price increases. There may be need for further price hikes in the sector if tariffs further raise costs, he said.

“We continue to work with customers and suppliers to manage the impact of tariff costs as the situation evolves,” De Cock said on the Georgia-based company’s earnings call.

Mohawk is encouraging consumers to look at domestically produced alternatives, he said. The company is also expanding capacity for quartz countertops made in Tennessee, which will increase the supply of goods not subject to tariffs, de Cock added.

For its part, the White House is aiming to soothe companies’ concerns about the looming deadline for tariffs, which were a core tenet of Trump’s campaign last year. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, for example, told CNBC on Tuesday that countries facing high tariff rates can lower them by negotiating a deal with the U.S.

“I would think that it’s not the end of the world if these snapback tariffs are on for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, as long as the countries are moving forward and trying to negotiate in good faith,” he said.