There are few business leaders who won’t need to explain to various stakeholders the impacts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the trade war it will initiate. How they position those impacts could determine whether they find their organizations in the Administration’s crosshairs. Communicators should counsel leaders on how to address the impacts. Neville and Shel share their thoughts in this short midweek FIR episode.

Links from this episode:

• Trade associations: PR’s secret weapon during tariff battle
• More pocketbook, less politics: How C-suites should talk about tariffs
• Trump’s tariffs – how should the EU react?
• Adapting Communication Strategies During Trump 2.0

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, April 28.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. Shel has started a metaverse-focused Flipboard magazine. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel Holtz:  Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 457 of four immediate release. I’m Shell Holtz.
Neville Hobson: And I’m Neville. Hobson. Today’s episode, we’re gonna have a talk about Trump’s terrace. This is a hot topic. You cannot avoid this if you turn on the TV news or pick up a newspaper ’cause this is a hot topic, , everywhere you go, anywhere in the world.
So we’re gonna talk about this from a communicator’s perspective. Now, let me set the scene. Um, the second Trump administration, which is where we’re at Trump 2.0, has begun introducing aggressive tariff policies. These acts are already reshaping the global trade landscape. Trump has proposed across the board import tariffs including a 10% levy on all foreign goods and potential increases of 60% and more on Chinese and other imports if implemented, these acts would trigger broad economic consequences, including a high probability of retaliatory tariffs on American goods and [00:01:00] services by affected nations.
In practice, this means five things. First, rising costs for consumers and businesses. Then disruption of global supply chains, retaliation from other countries, as I mentioned, inves