Trade war uncertainty prompts new wave of companies to yank forecasts

GM, JetBlue and Volvo all shelved earlier profit guidance for 2025 due to economic uncertainty. The shape-shifting nature of President Trump’s automotive duties have clouded the outlook, GM said, while JetBlue predicted that softer demand would plague the airline into the summer. Snapchat parent company Snap said it wouldn’t issue guidance like it normally does, and warned the social-media platform could suffer from an advertising slump. UPS didn’t update its outlook, though it predicted lower shipping volumes and revenue for the second quarter. It also announced 20,000 workers would be laid off.

Cutting costs at the company couldn’t be timelier given the fast-evolving macroeconomic environment where tariffs are a major point of uncertainty, UPS Chief Executive Carol Tomé told analysts and investors.

The shipper has talked to its top 100 customers in the U.S. to understand how their businesses are affected by new trade policies. All of them are still exploring how to absorb the cost of tariffs, push them down to consumers or get suppliers to defray the added expense, Tomé said, adding that by modeling different scenarios UPS should be able to adjust to the rapid shift in business.

“The world hasn’t been faced with such enormous potential impacts to trade in more than 100 years," she said. “The only thing we’re certain of is we don’t know which, if any, of our scenarios will play out."

Pulling guidance can frustrate investors looking to evaluate companies, while making it harder for Wall Street to set its expectations. The reluctance to give financial forecasts also shows the degree to which executives lack visibility into the economy now.

Executives at several companies, including JetBlue, said planning for the future and giving Wall Street the earnings outlooks it has come to rely on has become tricky. The airline said it is considering retooling its fleet and targeting more cost savings to boost profitability and preserve cash as it faces lower travel demand.

“We are focused on successfully managing what we can control," Chief Executive Joanna Geraghty said. “We are evaluating all levers available to us."

The renewed round of CEO warnings come after major companies, including American Airlines, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble, said last week that big-ticket items could soon cost more, travel and entertainment were becoming an early casualty of the trade war and companies were trying to significantly cut costs.

Two of Europe’s largest banks on Tuesday set aside more money for soured loans and forecast scenarios where higher tariffs could hurt the global economy.

London-listed HSBC—a huge funder of international trade—raised its expected credit losses to $900 million, up about $200 million from a year ago. In what it called a “consensus downside" scenario, where higher tariffs slow global growth and raise unemployment in industries like autos and textiles, HSBC said expected losses could rise by an additional $500 million. Similarly, Deutsche Bank took a provision of about $148.5 million, citing the uncertain “geopolitical and macro-economic outlook in the U.S."

Adidas executives said the sporting-goods maker had a good quarter and would normally raise guidance, but decided not to because of tariffs that could weigh on the bottom line or prompt price increases.

Other companies like Coca-Cola held their guidance steady, or raised earnings expectations, including Honeywell.

Nucor, the biggest U.S. steelmaker, says tariffs are having a positive impact.

Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said his company would stand by its earnings guidance that it gave at an investor day last year, even though the economic environment is less clear.

“The easy thing would have been to come in this morning and just say, listen, there’s so much noise. We’re pulling our guidance," Vena said. “But we have a job to do and our job is to react to whatever is thrown at us."

Nucor, the biggest U.S. steelmaker, said its order backlog was 25% higher than this time last year, defying predictions that customers would stock up before the tariff and quit buying once the tax took effect.

“What we’ve seen is no drop off at all in terms of order entry rates and inquiries," said Nucor CEO Leon Topalian, an enthusiastic supporter of additional tariffs on steel.

Duties have driven down demand for imported steel, opening more of the U.S. market to domestic steel producers, Topalian added: “It’s having a positive impact."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described Trump’s trade policy Tuesday as “strategic uncertainty." Markets would gain clarity as the U.S. starts to announce deals, he added, “but certainty is not necessarily a good thing in negotiating." Late Tuesday Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hinted at trade-deal progress.

Volvo Cars is betting higher tariffs are here to stay. The Swedish automaker withdrew its guidance for this year and next and announced a roughly $1.9 billion savings plan. Porsche appears to be hoping for a reversal in White House trade policy. The German sports car brand cut its 2025 financial guidance and now expects an operating-profit margin that’s less than half the levels it anticipated in its 2022 initial public offering.

Excluded from Porsche’s new guidance: any tariff impact beyond May. If the current tariffs remain in place, Porsche would need to raise prices and adjust its guidance again, the company said.

Business leaders across the political divide are feeling anxious about the Trump administration’s shifting tariff policy and other regulatory changes, according to a new poll conducted last week by business group Leadership Now Project and the Harris Poll.

In a survey of more than 300 senior corporate executives released Tuesday, 84% reported feeling somewhat concerned or very concerned about how the current political and legal climate will affect their businesses.

More than 80% of Republican and independent executives said they were concerned, while more than 90% of leaders who identified as Democrats said the same. Less than half—or 45%—of business leaders said recent executive orders and policies have hurt their company’s competitiveness, the survey found.

Many executives began the Trump presidency optimistic that the new administration would cut regulations and usher in a new era of growth. The stop-start tariff policies and other moves in the first 100 days of President Trump’s term, though, have triggered economic uncertainty and led companies to pull earnings forecasts, cut spending and delay big projects.

Not all executives were surprised: About a quarter of respondents to the survey said the current business climate under Trump is about what they expected.

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com, Bob Tita at robert.tita@wsj.com and Stephen Wilmot at stephen.wilmot@wsj.com