Washington lawyers and accountants are gearing up for a fee bonanza as companies prepare for tariffs, export controls and the possibility of trade wars under Donald Trump. In his first term, Trump catapulted international trade policy from a dry economic backwater to one of the most prominent briefs in Washington as he hit US trading partners with large tariffs and pushed companies to reorganise global supply chains. Four years later, people are ready for more of the same.
Bivens Collinson said some companies are exploring “tariff engineering” by investigating whether they can reclassify their product to something that is subject to a lower tariff rate. “You may have been classifying your product as a router for 25 years, but perhaps now it does a whole lot of other things too — is it even a router, or can we classify it as something else?” Accounting firms have also been selling clients advice on how to navigate the new landscape.