'Great cover for increased pricing': CEOs say Trump policies help them gouge customers

29 July

President Donald Trump in the White House on March 20, 2025 (Official White House Photo by Daniel Toro/Flickr)

American corporate executives are openly acknowledging that they’re exploiting President Donald Trump’s controversial tariffs as “great cover” to justify their price hikes.

The New Republic highlighted a Groundwork Collaborative report published Tuesday which revealed that, in their own words, top executives are exploiting Trump’s erratic tariff strategies to jack up the price tags on consumer goods.

After reviewing earnings call transcripts from major corporations during the first half of 2025, Groundwork found that executives admitted they planned to raise prices even when they were not directly impacted by the administration’s economic measures.

For instance, Holley’s CEO Matthew Stevenson reportedly said that the market has seen “price increases well in excess of what we put out into the market,” citing examples where competitors raised prices by “as high as 30 percent or more on some categories.”

Generac’s CEO Aaron Jagdfeld remarked, per the report, that “even if we have metals that weren’t impacted directly by tariffs, the indirect effect of tariffs is that it gives steel producers and the mills and other fabricators ... great cover for increased pricing in some cases.”

POOLCORP executives told investors they “expect that currently announced tariffs will positively impact net sales by approximately 1 [percent] based on vendor price increases to‑date.”

Rocky Brands’ CFO Thomas Robertson affirmed that “regardless” of any easing of Chinese tariffs, the company would still push ahead with a price increase.

“We certainly welcome a reduction in the Chinese tariffs, but we’ll be announcing a price increase here regardless of any changes of the Chinese tariffs over the next week or two to go into effect in June," he said.

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