Andrew Ross Sorkin

I mean, it is everything.

I spent the weekend talking to business leaders and CEOs, many of whom really have re-scrambled their entire supply chains over the last six months, made commitments to bring manufacturing back to the United States, switched manufacturing plants from places like China to India to other places, thought that they had remapped what their true costs were going to be, and are now looking at this saying, oh my goodness, what comes next?

I think all of these companies are spending the weekend trying to think through all of this with a sense, though, that this is going to be a very long-term fight, whatever it is.

And just to say, the midterms and the fact that the tariffs largely aren't actually popular with voters, that's actually part of the calculus for the business community as they consider their plans.

Because they're looking at all these tariffs and they're wondering, given the politics of this moment, are these tariffs still going to be here in six months?

Because in truth, the view is that if these tariffs are not going to exist come this fall, the whole game gets re-scrambled.

It changes completely all over again.

And so it's going to be very interesting to see whether companies tip their hand and really tell us what they're going to do, whether they're going to be willing to really talk about what their plans are next as they're making them.

So look, you can look at companies like Toyota, which recently attributed about $8 billion of losses to the tariffs.

Ford said that the tariff-related charges cost them $2 billion in 2025.

They're expecting over a billion dollars in 2026.

General Motors is in somewhat of a similar camp.

So there are a lot of businesses that have been impacted by this, that they can look directly at those losses and say they want that money back.

Mm-hmm.

Again, this question of when you publicly seek a refund, what does that ultimately also mean for your business if it's regulated in some other way by the U.S.

government and if you're concerned at all about the administration somehow coming back at you in another way?

You know, this administration has aggressively pursued companies in so many different ways, whether it be law firms or you can look at some of the big media companies or so many other instances where they have used their regulatory powers against corporations that they did not believe were, quote unquote, on side, if you will, with this administration.

And therefore, I think there's a big question about whether some of these companies will seek refunds or not.

You are asking what may be the $175 billion question, which is to say there is an argument that may be made by this administration in court if a company comes to seek a refund.

It is possible that the administration will argue that they effectively raised prices, didn't suffer or subject themselves, therefore, to a loss, and therefore effectively have no standing to collect a refund.