The day Trump’s tariff threats turned into a harsh reality for CEOs and investors

Stock market futures sank and the U.S. dollar slumped. Shares of some of America’s best-known businesses, from Apple and Nvidia to Nike and General Motors, sold off on fears that new trade barriers would swallow their profits and drive up prices to levels that would sap demand for their products.

As details of the announcement spread by text messages and tweets, executives started to realize that Trump’s tariff threats were becoming a harsh reality. Many executives and investors spent the hours after the Rose Garden ceremony trying to understand how far the contagion will spread. China and Europe were preparing their responses.

“It reminds me of trying to manage during Covid," said Austin Ramirez, chief executive of Husco, which makes parts for automakers and other manufacturers. “The managerial time-suck that Covid was, this strikes me as the same thing."

Dan Ives, managing director of Wedbush Securities, also was hit with flashbacks to March 2020, when the onset of the Covid pandemic sent shock waves through Wall Street. “That almost looked like an Armageddon chart. My initial reaction was, worse than worst case. This is going to be an all-time panic moment," said Ives. “I almost couldn’t breathe."

Calls began pouring in after Trump’s press conference from investors in shock, Ives said, and after hours on the phone from Europe to the Middle East to Asia, he still needed to return some 50 calls. “Our reputation is made on these moments, rather than in the good times," said Ives, adding that he pulled an all-nighter Tuesday and has been in “war rooms" all week.

Wall Street bankers and business leaders have spent weeks trying to understand—and shape—Trump’s ever-shifting tariff plans. Many also believed—as they were reassured by some in Trump’s inner circle—that the potential levies were negotiating tactics the businessman-turned-politician would use to extract concessions from trading partners and adversaries.

Instead, Trump unveiled 10% across-the-board tariffs, and even higher levies on a swath of countries including Japan, Europe, South Korea and Vietnam. The new fees on China will push the costs of many goods from that country—from toothbrushes to televisions—above 50%. The 10% tariffs kick in on April 5 and the higher rates on April 9.

China called the tariffs “unilateral bullying" and pledged to retaliate, while other countries struck a more cautious tone. Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his government will try to negotiate to remove the tariffs, but won’t join a “race to the bottom" by retaliating, and India’s Trade Ministry, too, said it had no plans to immediately retaliate.

Brian Riley, CEO of Guardian Bikes, says Trump’s agenda ‘is a welcome departure from a trade and economic policy that prioritized offshoring production and cheap consumption.’

Brian Riley, chief executive of Guardian Bikes, was among the guests at the Rose Garden, one of the few business leaders sitting alongside auto workers and steelworkers. The mood was jubilant before Trump took to the podium. Jazz music played.

Riley welcomed the tariffs, even though they will squeeze his business this year. Guardian moved production of its children’s bicycles in 2022 from China to Seymour, Ind. While 90% of the components are imported from China, Riley had already put in place a plan to reduce that number to about 20% by the end of next year.

The tariffs provide incentive for Guardian to expand capacity at its Seymour facility and invest in building out the bicycle supply chain in the U.S. Trump’s agenda “is a welcome departure from a trade and economic policy that prioritized offshoring production and cheap consumption," Riley said.

The mood was less joyous at Pulsar Products, a Cleveland supplier of stationery, novelty items and souvenirs. Employees held a “watch party" in the company’s boardroom to listen to Trump‘s “Liberation Day" announcement on a big-screen TV.

“As I looked around, I sensed a feeling of nausea," said Pulsar CEO Eric Ludwig.

Employees are concerned not just with the impact on Pulsar, but also with what tariffs mean for their own wallets and the American people. “We are thinking our clothes are going to cost more," he said. “Everything is going to jump."

Pulsar has reduced the share of its supply coming from China to 50% from 80% over the last two years by moving some sourcing to Vietnam. One Pulsar employee is currently in Vietnam checking on production for the busy back-to-school season, set to arrive at U.S. retailers in July. Such shipments from Vietnam now face 46% tariffs.

Ludwig said he was hoping to hear the president offer tax credits or some other relief to help small businesses like his 36-person company through the tough adjustment period. The size of the new tariffs is the same for big companies and small businesses, “but the impact on smaller companies is bigger," he said.

“I had already braced myself," he said. “We knew something would happen, but we didn’t know how dramatic the impact would be."

Victor Yarbrough, the chief executive at Brough Brothers Distillery in Louisville, Ky., was left wondering what retaliatory tariffs would bring. He recently invested in an expansion, with a strategy to send his excess spirits overseas. The tariffs complicate those plans.

“We are certain the EU is going to retaliate," said Yarbrough. He also wondered how much U.S. consumers would have to spend on his bourbon or rum if everything else gets more expensive. “It boils down to how much disposable income does one family have?," he said.

Some investors say that whiplash from Trump’s changing trade policy plans have left them unfazed on Liberation Day.

Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, said she spent six hours on a Sunday in early February writing research briefings about the potential effects of 25% levies on Mexico and Canada, barely finishing in time for her husband’s birthday dinner. A day later, the U.S. struck last-minute deals with both countries to delay the tariffs.

Cox decided to stick to her regular routine this time around. She took her pug, Ozzy, to the vet to receive a shot for his allergies, and briefed her team on the early morning market action.

“We’ve been the frog in boiling water here, getting used to the dramatic nature of these announcements," said Cox. “Today is a day where investors are just beaten into acceptance."

Charts show reciprocal tariffs the U.S. is charging other countries.

In an interview on CNN Wednesday night, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sought to calm markets, suggesting that tariffs might not cause price increases because U.S. companies will get their foreign vendors to eat the cost of the levies. He said his message to other countries was that a trade war could be averted.

“Everybody sit back. Take a deep breath. Don’t immediately retaliate," Bessent said. “Let’s see where this goes. Because if you retaliate that’s how we get escalation."

For Husco, the problem was the magnitude of Trump’s tariffs. “If there had been a 5% tariff, we could have worked through it—maybe absorbing it, maybe sharing some of it with our suppliers," said Ramirez, the CEO.

Husco has revenues of about $500 million and three factories in the U.S., as well as plants in India, China and Europe, which mostly produce for those regions.

Instead of boosting U.S. production as the Trump administration hopes, the new tariffs are likely to lead Husco to shift some production out of its U.S. factories. The new tariffs mean it will no longer be cost-effective to import components to make products for export.

“It doesn’t make any sense to do that, I’m going to have make those products in another part of the world," Ramirez said.

He said it would take years for any domestic alternatives for the components he imports to develop. “To reboot that sort of manufacturing here is going to take huge investment in plants and equipment—but also, we don’t have people who want to do that sort of work," he said.

Glen Calder, the president of a family-owned manufacturer of asphalt pavers in South Carolina, said the potential for reciprocal tariffs from Canada concerns him. The company generates about 20% of its sales there.

Engines that Calder buys from China now carry tariffs of 45%, the executive said. Calder Brothers only buys U.S.-made steel, and has seen prices for the metal rise 15% since U.S. tariffs on imports were announced earlier this year.

“We’re trying to figure out what’s happening to our costs right now and how do we address that—do we do a surcharge, do we do a price increase?" said Calder, who has received numerous emails from suppliers warning of both approaches. “What’s the longevity of these tariffs?"

Calder still hopes the tariffs will prove a negotiating tactic by the Trump administration. “We’re breaking some dishes in the kitchen right now," he said, “but in the next three months, six months, we’ll get things swept up and cleaned up and put the kitchen back in order."

Write to Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com and Krystal Hur at krystal.hur@wsj.com