As New Tariffs Kick in, PYMNTS Tracks Deepening Economic Uncertainty

The current tariff landscape can be boiled down to one theme: uncertainty.

As several news outlets have reported, a new tranche of duties hit at 12:01 a.m. Thursday (Aug. 7), but many carve-outs and enforcement details remain cloudy, forcing governments to scramble for side deals while the White House sketches sector-specific levies that could soar to 250%.

According to Bloomberg, the Treasury has already booked $82 billion in tariff revenue in just three months, a 241% jump from a year ago. However, the path forward is anything but clear.

This comes as no surprise to PYMNTS readers. PYMNTS Intelligence’s year-long “Uncertainty Project” has turned its attention to the tariff issue since President Donald Trump took office. As the tariff picture continues to develop (or not), we thought it a good opportunity to summarize some of the PYMNTS Intelligence’s findings across four groups: consumers, SMBs, mid-market companies and CFOs. Below are the latest sector-specific insights.

Consumers:

Sticker shock spreads beyond imports. June’s “Stock Out” survey found 47% of U.S. shoppers could not find or afford everyday items because tariffs disrupted supply chains or inflated price tags.

Regressive impact intensifies. Millennials and Generation Z consumers, who rely heavily on lower-priced imports, face a tariff-related cost burden 1.6 times higher than that of baby boomers, according to the same report.

Trading down becomes the default. Nearly one-third of respondents delayed or canceled discretionary buys — electronics, home décor, even back-to-school supplies — while 42% said they now compare prices at three or more retailers before purchasing, up from 27% in January. Psychological scarring looms, the report says. PYMNTS analysts warn that prolonged out-of-stocks can “train” shoppers to regard once-routine purchases as risky, embedding thrift into long-term habits and eroding lifetime customer value for brands.

Takeaway: Tariffs are no longer an abstract policy lever. They are a daily pain point at the checkout aisle. Retailers must brace for a consumer who is both price-sensitive and chronically unsure whether the product will even be on the shelf.

Small- to Medium-Size Businesses:

Survival anxiety deepens. In “Brewing Storm,” we found 13% of SMBs lack access to any form of financing and believe their survival is at risk in the next two years, an 86% increase compared to the 6.9% of all SMBs surveyed who express this concern.

Precarious reliance: Half of SMBs currently depend solely on their daily sales or owners’ personal savings for survival, indicating a limited financial safety net in a volatile operating environment.

Tariff preparedness gap: SMBs with access to financing and readily available cash are 23% more likely to be very confident in their ability to navigate potential tariffs. In contrast, SMBs without access to financing are 75% more likely to have no plan in place to help offset any additional costs arising from tariffs.

Counterintuitive disconnect: Surprisingly, 3 out of 4 SMBs that lack any access to financing paradoxically claim they do not need it. This finding is highlighted as counterintuitive given that survival in an uncertain business environment often depends on timely access to funding.

Mid-Market Businesses:

“Tariffs and Business Uncertainty: The Current State of Play” reveals a significant shift in sentiment among U.S. middle-market firms, with more than half of heads of payments at goods firms now believing tariffs will negatively impact their companies. This represents a sharp increase from previous months, when positive and negative outlooks were equally split at 35%. In contrast, services firms remain largely ambivalent regarding the tariffs’ effects.

Supply chain concerns: The study highlights widespread concerns over supply chain disruptions, with nearly 9 in 10 goods firms anticipating product delivery delays or shortages and higher raw material costs due to tariffs. These expectations have climbed 9 percentage points since February, indicating increasing strain on supply chains for physical goods.

No confidence vote: Confidence in managing these potential disruptions remains low across sectors. Only 35% of heads of payments at both goods and services companies expressed strong confidence in their firms’ ability to adapt to supply chain challenges. Furthermore, 1 in 4 heads of payments surveyed reported being not or only slightly confident in their firm’s adaptability.

Pressure: In response to tariff pressures, middle-market firms are actively adapting their strategies. For goods firms, 63% plan to renegotiate pricing with existing suppliers, and 53% intend to replace overseas providers with domestic ones. Despite these proactive steps, a notable portion of firms have taken no action, including 16% of goods firms and 24% of services firms, with this figure rising to 27% for high-uncertainty firms.

Takeaway: Mid-market CEOs call 2025 “the reset year.” Growth bets are shelved in favor of liquidity hoarding, defensive tech and supply-chain relays — moves that help them survive today but risk dulling competitive edge tomorrow.

Chief Product Officers:

Our report, “The CAIO Report: Tariff Turbulence: Product Leaders Shift Strategy to Blunt Fallout,” reveals crucial insights into how companies of varying sizes are perceiving and responding to current trade policies. It found that pessimism surges among the largest firms: Eighty percent of product leaders at the largest U.S. enterprises, defined as those with annual revenues exceeding $10 billion, now anticipate mostly or completely negative impacts from tariffs. This represents a significant 24 percentage point increase in pessimism since May, when 56% expected similar outcomes.

Universal expectation of disruptions for largest companies: One hundred percent of the largest enterprises are bracing for specific negative consequences, including costs associated with reconfiguring supply chains, shortages or delays in acquiring necessary products, and difficulties with exports. Furthermore, all of these large firms also anticipate potential layoffs or reduced hiring.

Proactive measures: In response to tariff pressures, most of the largest enterprises are actively implementing strategies. Specifically, 57% are reducing operational costs, while 50% are negotiating better prices with their suppliers and 50% are adopting just-in-time inventory strategies to manage their stock more tightly.

Emerging opportunities: Despite widespread concerns, the report indicates some positive outlooks. Ninety-two percent of all surveyed enterprises anticipate positive impacts from new opportunities to support local economies. Additionally, 82% expect enhanced supply chain resilience as a result of adapting to the current trade environment.

Takeaway: The finance suite is the new nerve center for tariff strategy, toggling between cash-flow triage and real-time scenario modeling. Yet PYMNTS warns of a bifurcation: proactive CFOs sprint ahead with contingency playbooks, while a sizable minority remain frozen just when foresight is most valuable.

Across every layer of the economy, PYMNTS Intelligence’s Uncertainty Project paints the same picture: tariffs have shifted from macro headline to micro reality. From checkout aisles to boardrooms, the new mantra is conserve, delay, hedge — and hope clarity arrives before cash runs out.