Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross once said the price of an aluminum can filled with soup would only increase by "six-tenths of 1 cent" when Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum imports were first announced (pictured above), but the tariffs are causing a lot more trouble than that for the Campbell's soup company.
Campbell's profits have nosedived by as much as 6 percent and their CEO has resigned thanks in part to Trump's tariffs.
From CNBC:
"At this stage, given what we know about accelerating cost inflation in part due to the anticipated impact of import tariffs and the continuing headwind on transportation and logistics cost, we expect our margins will be down in fiscal 2019," [Chief Financial Officer Anthony DiSilvestro] said. [...]
"The issue is primarily one of cost inflation and we're seeing and expecting an acceleration on the rate of inflation across a number of ingredient and packaging items," DiSilvestro said. "For example, we expect double-digit increases on steel and aluminum. A lot of that [is] driven or all of it's driven by the impact of anticipated tariffs."
Shares of Campbell's dropped by 12 percent after the news was announced on Friday and, while I'm certainly not going to lose sleep because a corporation is losing money, this is Trump's doing. It's not their fault or at least not entirely.
Campbell's has other problems, but it's also dealing with Trump's self-inflicted wound of tariffs will only increase costs for Americans.
It would be easier to say it's okay if American companies have to pay for Trump's tariffs if there were actually a benefit for doing so, but there isn't. This is like eating empty calories while on a diet. There's no there, there.