How much does your supply chain need to change to limit tariffs?

After a massive tariff overhaul, many companies are racing to limit unprecedented cost increases across multiple countries of origin, products, and components. Working with customs advisors is a key part of determining how to protect profitability and maintain compliance—but there’s a tough reality at hand. You may have to overhaul supply chains to keep up with new demands. Here, we’ll look at what leaders can expect to address in the near future. 

Discover tariff engineering opportunities

Tariff engineering is the practice of adjusting imports to reduce cost exposure. Companies consider strategic changes to a product, its components, or origin to potentially qualify for product classification under a different, less costly classification code. 

Companies typically require customs advisors to develop tariff engineering recommendations. That’s because minor changes can have significant ripple effects. 

Unintended consequences can risk non-compliance with multiple countries’ regulations. Outcomes can be sticky, including supply chain bottlenecks, administrative burdens, fines and fees, and increased regulatory scrutiny of entire supply chains. 

A customs advisor analyzes several factors related to products, components, regulations and trade policies, logistics, and change signals to discover optimal import scenarios. 

Align your supply chain with findings

Once customs advisors determine the right strategy, leaders can collaborate on operational alignment to ensure internal and external teams follow recommendations. This may include broad changes that impact entire supply chains:

• Adjusting product development

• Qualifying alternate suppliers

• Moving manufacturing locations

• Moving assembly locations

• Negotiating with logistics carriers

  
  

Agility is vital to success. Supply chain shifts can take time and incur transitional costs, while new tariffs may be announced suddenly. 

For example, new tariffs could arise if global trends show manufacturing, assembly, or other trade shifts from one country where tariffs are high to another where tariffs are lower. A presidential administration could decide to raise rates on goods from the country where companies have moved operations as a hedge against policy circumvention. 

That’s why customs advisors work flexibility, redundancies, key contract terms, and other dependencies into strategy. In a volatile landscape, agility protects your business from unnecessary cost sink.

Stay ahead of financial risk with ongoing analysis

Leaders can build resilience by making customs advisory an active part of financial and operational planning. That means combining expert insight, technology, and cross-functional coordination to stay ahead of change.

As tariff impacts shake out on a global scale, customs advisors can provide ongoing scenario planning and strategy to keep business on track. These partnerships can minimize disruptions to supply chains and strengthen competitiveness in an unpredictable global trade environment.

Ready to get a handle on tariffs? At Tom Gould Customs Consulting, we optimize your supply chain to limit costs and maintain compliance. Email Tom to start.