Gregory Husisian on Potential Mexico Tariffs – 'Planning for the worst case scenario is essential'
Foley & Lardner LLP partner Gregory Husisian described how U.S. companies reliant on Mexican imports should assess the impact of potential tariffs in the Global Trade Review article, “Trump’s trade agenda: Businesses prepare for tariff fallout.”
“Make sure you understand where your suppliers and sub-suppliers are, and figure out what the risk points are, and whether you need to be setting up secondary contingent suppliers,” Husisian explained, emphasizing that planning for the worst case scenario is essential.
“A lot of it comes down to understanding your import patterns, risk planning, setting up alternatives and renegotiating contracts so you can share tariff-related risks,” he continued, “because it’s notoriously difficult to use force majeure and commercial impracticability clauses to try to deal with this.”
Husisian noted too that uncertainty remains high as to what steps will actually be taken in the interest of reshoring, and that until then, companies “are in a bit of a quandary because they can’t actually take concrete steps to cope when they don’t know what they’re coping with.”