What companies say about impact of Trump MAGA policies

The frequency picked up late last year as Trump’s return to the White House became clear. About half the calls in 2024 that mentioned forms of the word took place in the fourth quarter, according to a CNBC analysis of data from FactSet, a market research service.

“Studying tariffs has been at the top of the list of things that we’ve been doing,” Marathon Petroleum CEO Maryann Mannen said on the energy company’s Feb. 4 earnings call.

Several companies said they were not factoring potential impacts from these levies into their guidance, citing uncertainty about what orders will actually be put in motion. Others just aren’t sure: At Martin Marietta Materials, CFO James Nickolas said the supplier’s profits could either benefit or take a hit from tariffs depending on what form ultimately takes effect.

While Generac didn’t calculate how these import taxes could affect future performance, according to CEO Aaron Jagdfeld, he said the generator maker is ready to mitigate the financial hit by reducing costs elsewhere and raising its prices. Camden Property Trust CEO Richard Campo said a company analysis shows proposed tariffs would push up costs for materials from Canada and Mexico such as lumber and electrical boxes. These comments offer support to the idea that Trump’s tariffs may drive up consumer prices and fan inflation.

Zebra Technologies CFO Nathan Winters said price increases could help mitigate profit pressure. Auto parts maker BorgWarner, meanwhile, anticipates another year of declining demand in certain markets, which CFO Craig Aaron attributed in part to potential headwinds from these levies.

Cisco‘s R. Scott Herren agreed with other executives on the lack of clarity, describing the tariff situation as “dynamic” on the networking equipment maker’s earnings call Wednesday. Still, the CFO said the company has planned for some variation of Trump’s tariff proposals to take effect and is expecting costs to increase as a result.

“We’ve game-planned out several scenarios and steps we could take depending on what actually goes into effect,” he said.

Some companies grouped immigration with tariffs as drivers of broader unpredictability within the economy. Nicholas Pinchuk, CEO of toolmaker Snap-On, described anecdotes of strong demand for repair services from its clients but said they were still stressed by red flags in the economic backdrop.

“It’s clear the techs are in a good position. But that doesn’t make them immune to the macro uncertainty around them: ongoing wars, immigration disputes, lingering inflation,” Pinchuk said. “Although the election is in the rear mirror and the new team may be more focused on business expansion, there’s a rapid fire of new initiatives. … It’s hard not to be uncertain about what’s up.”

Firms in a variety of sectors took questions about what changes in the composition of America’s population would mean. AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile all fielded questions about whether a slowdown in immigration would hurt demand for certain phone plans. Michael Manelis, operations chief at apartment manager Equity Residential, said in response to an immigration-related inquiry that the company hasn’t seen any upticks in lease breaks from tenants being deported.

In the Southern California market, Hamid Moghadam, CEO of real estate developer Prologis, said deportations can decrease the pool of workers and, in turn, drive up employment costs in the region. That can exacerbate pricing pressures already expected as the Los Angeles community rebuilds in the wake of the January wildfires.

Other businesses insisted deportations wouldn’t create labor shortages for their operations because all of their workers are legally authorized. One such company, chicken producer Tyson Foods, said its factories haven’t been visited by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or seen any declines in worker attendance.

“We’re confident that we’ll be able to continue to successfully run our business,” CEO Donnie King said on Feb. 3.

Executives at Palantir, the defensive technology company that was a top performer within the S&P 500 in 2024, are similarly hopeful. Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar described Palantir’s work with the government as “operational” and “valuable” and said he is hopeful that DOGE engineers will be “able to see that for a change.”

“I think DOGE is going to bring meritocracy and transparency to government, and that’s exactly what our commercial business is,” Sankar said during the company’s Feb. 3 call. “The commercial market is meritocratic and transparent, and you see the results that we have in that sort of environment. And that’s the basis of our optimism around this.”

He noted some concerns among other government software providers, and called those agreements “sacred cows of the deep state” during the call.

Elsewhere, the so-called Gulf of America has been a point of divergence after Trump’s executive order renaming what has long been known as the Gulf of Mexico. Chevron used the moniker Gulf of America repeatedly in its earnings release and on its call with analysts in late January. But Exxon Mobil, which held its earnings call the same day, opted instead to refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico.