The new tariff landscape is hitting Wall Street's corner offices like a cold shower after a long, pleasant dream. Watch in real time as America's financial titans cycle through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—a corporate Kübler-Ross model playing out in earnings calls and breathless CNBC appearances.
Jamie Dimon, usually Wall Street's unflagging optimist, kicked things off last week with a warning about "unintended consequences." That's CEO-speak for "this might mess with our money." The JPMorgan chief seemed genuinely rattled that the administration's tariff push could upend the economic narrative he's been peddling for months.
And who can blame him? The cognitive dissonance is jarring. After a year of convincing themselves (and their shareholders) that inflation was beaten and the Fed would pivot, suddenly tariffs are back—threatening to wake the very inflation dragons everyone thought were safely caged.
I've been covering earnings calls for years, and there's something almost ritualistic about how predictably corporate America processes these external shocks. The pattern goes something like this:
First comes denial: "These tariffs won't affect our business model." (Translation: our analysts haven't run the numbers yet)
Then anger: "This represents an unprecedented challenge to established trade norms!" (Translation: our procurement team is losing their minds)
Followed by bargaining: "We're in discussions with administration officials about potential exemptions." (What they mean: our lobbyists are finally earning their keep)
Then depression: "We anticipate temporary margin pressure as we navigate this new reality." (Read: we're jacking up prices)
And finally, acceptance: "We've implemented strategic supply chain diversification and pricing adjustments." (The truth: we passed the costs to you, dear consumer)
Look at GM's Mary Barra—she's speedrunning the whole process. After initially warning about supply disruptions, she pivoted last week to emphasizing GM's "supply chain resilience initiatives"—corporate-speak for "we figured out how to make this someone else's problem."
What's fascinating isn't the tariffs themselves—economists have been fighting about their effectiveness since Adam Smith put quill to parchment. No, it's the predictable corporate processing of the shock that's worth watching.
The thing about CEO tariff grief? It's simultaneously performative and genuine. These executives really do hate uncertainty and disruption to their carefully crafted business models. But—and this is crucial—they're remarkably adaptable when forced to be. Business history is essentially one long case study in adaptation to changing regulatory environments.
While conventional wisdom holds that tariffs are universally bad for business, the reality has more shades than a paint store. For companies with primarily domestic supply chains or those positioned to grab market share from import-dependent rivals, tariffs can be a windfall. US Steel and Nucor execs barely contained their glee on recent calls, skipping straight to acceptance (and probably private celebration).
Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts are experiencing their own meta-level grief. Nothing irritates an analyst more than having to incorporate messy geopolitical variables into otherwise pristine spreadsheets. I've spoken with several who are genuinely frustrated at having to revise models based on tariff impacts they can't properly quantify.
The market itself, strangely enough, seems to be processing tariff grief faster than individual CEOs. After a brief tantrum when the expanded tariffs were announced, equities have largely shrugged off concerns. Is the market, in its collective wisdom (or delusion, depending where you stand), seeing something the executives aren't? Or is it just another case of investors ignoring problems until they actually show up in earnings reports?
As we watch the remaining CEOs work through their tariff grief in upcoming calls, remember this: in the grand American business tradition, today's "unprecedented challenges" have a funny way of becoming tomorrow's "strategic opportunities." Corporate grief rarely ends with actual grief—it typically concludes with a PowerPoint slide explaining how the company is now "better positioned than ever before."
That's Wall Street for you. The five stages of grief always end with an unofficial sixth stage—figuring out how to profit from whatever caused the grief in the first place.
