Strategic Intelligence: Tariffs Sentiment Polls - August 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, created significant uncertainty for businesses worldwide, and eroded consumer confidence (which fell to an almost five-year low in the US in April 2025). The focus for the next few months will be on how companies navigate the new set of US reciprocal tariffs, implemented on August 7, 2025, and if the Trump administration keeps to these revised figures. Additionally, a US federal appeals court ruled on August 29, 2025, that Trump’s most sweeping tariffs are unlawful, teeing up a showdown in the US Supreme Court. Trump will likely double down by tapping other tariff authorities, keeping trade war chaos ongoing for the next few months.
• The business community’s current sentiment on tariffs is mostly negative. However, a sizeable minority sees opportunities in their implementation. There have been clear changes in business sentiment when comparing our April and August data, which this report will look at in detail.

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 August 31, 2025. In total, the 14 polls received 12,771 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.