A new tariff is an opportunity to save your company money and show your value — assuming you have the right tools.

For example, on Jun 2, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) proposed a tariff targeting virtually every major US trading partner: Canada, Mexico, the European Union, Japan, India. South Korea, China, and many others. The rationale is forced labor. The agency claims that, by failing to eliminate it, target countries not only fail to uphold a “universal aim,” but also gain an unfair competitive advantage over American companies.

Analyzing the impact is tricky, because there are quite a few exceptions. USMCA-qualifying goods from Canada and Mexico, and items from the Dominican Republic and Central America under CAFTA-DR get a pass. There are also carve-outs in aerospace and semiconductor components, as well as certain minerals, metals, chemicals and produce items.

But that still leaves a lot of covered items, at a rate of 10-12.5%, on top of existing tariffs. That’s a big enough increase to impact your sourcing strategy.

If you have good vendor illumination, you can put together a plan to save money ahead of time. All you need to do is isolate the supplies that might be impacted, and trace them upstream to find out which vendors are affected. Then, plot out some alternate options, looking at the risk profiles of vendors to replace ones .

The tariff hasn’t been approved yet, so you might want to pause at this point; there will be federal notice, public hearings, and a post-hearing comment period. Follow the news, and if it looks like the proposal will be adopted, you can proceed to check with your existing vendors about price increases, get competing bids, and make your decisions — and still get there in time to mitigate your own cost increases.

Depending on your platform and data fabric, that either sounds like a few hours of work, or a pipe dream. If you can call up most or all of the relevant data, and automatically report it in a way that’s easy to digest, that’s great! You have all the tools you need.

But if this sounds like an impossible or impractical task, come talk to us. Our platform can light up your supply chain, so you can prepare for the impact of tariffs, supply chain disruptions, environmental events, or virtually any other scenario the economy can throw at you.