Strategic Intelligence: Tariffs Sentiment Polls - July 2025

This report is based on a set of 14 polls designed to help understand the business community’s sentiment toward tariffs.

Key Highlights

• In the first 100 days of his second term, Donald Trump blew up eight decades of global trade rules with the imposition of a 10% global baseline and a "reciprocal" tariff framework, plus sizeable tariffs on strategic sectors. These measures have disrupted global supply chains and created significant uncertainty for businesses worldwide, while also eroding consumer sentiment (which fell to an almost five-year low in the US in April). The focus for the next few months will be on how companies navigate the new set of ‘reciprocal tariffs’, announced on August 1, 2025, and if the Trump administration keeps to these revised figures.
• Consistent with findings in our May and June 2025 Tariff Sentiment Poll reports, the business community’s sentiment on tariffs continues to be mostly negative. However, a sizeable minority sees opportunities in their implementation. Businesses in July were far more optimistic than in recent months, as a flurry of trade deals came through to ease concerns.

Scope

• The analyst is running 14 polls on its Verdict and Business Trade Media International networks of B2B websites. The polls are still live at the time of writing, but this report analyzes data captured between April 10 and July 31, 2025. In total, the 14 polls received 10,747 responses. We have categorized the poll questions into four distinct groups for our analysis: concerns and challenges, business outlook, pricing, and investment and procurement.

Reasons to Buy

• This survey gives a unique insight into the business community's views on tariffs. It provides an early insight into their level of concern about the impact of tariffs on their business and a view of how tariffs are expected to impact the economic outlook over the next 12 months.