CEOs Are Panicking As Trump Continues To Ignore Their Warnings About His Disastrous Policies

According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, CEOs across America are starting to panic as Donald Trump continues to ignore their warnings about what his proposed tariff plan will do to the economy – and to their companies. Trump still maintains that other countries pay the tariffs, but those taxes are actually being paid by the companies that bring the goods into the country. Raising prices is the only way these companies can combat their increased expenses, and that means higher prices for consumers which leads to fewer goods purchased, and so on. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

A new report from the Wall Street Journal says that CEOs across the country, companies big and smaller, are panicking over the fact that Donald Trump is not listening to them at all. And ordinarily, if I were going to start a story like that, it would be a positive story, right? CEOs in this country should be panicked. And let's be fair, they're panicked for a lot of different reasons right now, as we all know. So, CEOs being afraid, a government that's not listening to them, ordinarily, that would be a good story, but it's what Trump is not listening to them about. That, of course, is problematic because according to this Wall Street Journal report, these CEOs have been desperately trying to convince Donald Trump that his tariff plan is going to be a disaster for the US economy and selfs servingly for their own companies. But Trump is refusing to listen to them.

Here's what the report says. Trump isn't budging so far. Executives are facing setbacks as they canvas. Trump's aids for advice on how to influence the president-elect's next steps. Trump is largely acting on his own, leaving his incoming team of advisors with few opportunities to shape his thinking. So the CEOs are reaching out to Trump's aides, his advisor saying, listen, we gotta talk to the guy. You've gotta talk to the guy. Somebody's gotta tell him that he is dead wrong about who pays these tariffs. Trump still maintains to this day, whether out of stupidity or just trying to, you know, pull the wool over our eyes that other countries pay the tariffs. Like if we put a 25% tariff on China or the Chinese goods, China pays it. That ain't what happens. And I think everybody's on the same page with that. Now, the companies that import those goods pay the 25% tariff, not China. China's fine. Their costs don't go up a dime.

Companies pay those good, uh, pay those tariffs. Taxes is what they are. So then, because their cost increased by 25%, they pass on a price increase of at least 25%. Typically, they go a little bit more than what it is, just like they did with inflation. When inflation, you know, was up to 5%, they would raise their prices seven to 8%, uh, sometimes more than that in order to just put a little more in their pockets. So that's what we're dealing with. And here's the thing about these CEOs. These CEOs that are panicked right now, they're not panicked because they don't want you to have to pay more for goods, right? That's not what concerns them. They don't care. Like if you paid more money, they would be okay with that as long as they didn't lose money. Now, that's

Where it comes in. Here's what happens. This is basic, you know, macro economics 1 0 1, when the price of goods and services increases dramatically, and I'm not talking one or 2%, I'm talking 10 to 20 to 30%, which is, you know, the baseline for the tariffs. Wind prices increase. That much demand for those things decreases at a higher rate. So if prices increase by 10%, we wouldn't see a 10% reduction in purchases. Instead, we would likely see a 20 to 30% decrease in those purchases, if that makes sense to everybody. So these CEOs know that, listen, there are people that are gonna be out there that are still gonna have to buy our goods, right? I make washing machines, I make refrigerators, I make dishwashers. People need these things. But if people see that the price of that dishwasher has gone up from $500 to $800, they're gonna think twice before they buy one.