Dive Brief:

• Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja voiced concerns Wednesday over President Donald Trump’s plan for a trade agenda leaning heavily on the imposition of tariffs, saying it could impact the company’s bottom line.
• Despite efforts to localize its supply chain in every market over the years, the electric vehicle maker remains “very reliant” on parts from across the world for all its businesses, Taneja said during an earnings call.
• The “imposition of tariffs, which is very likely, will have an impact on our business and profitability,” he said.

Dive Insight:

Taneja is the latest finance chief of a major U.S. company to sound the alarm over Trump’s tariff plans.

In December, Costco Wholesale CFO Gary Millerchip said tariffs raise costs and are not something the company sees “as a positive,” as previously reported by CFO Dive.

And Walmart CFO John David Rainey has also weighed in, telling CNBC in November after the election that the retailer might need to raise prices on some items if tariffs take effect.

“We never want to raise prices,” he told the news outlet. “Our model is everyday low prices. But there probably will be cases where prices will go up for consumers.”

Trump vowed while running for office to levy tariffs on key trading partners and has renewed that threat since the election.

Speaking in the Oval Office just hours after his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump indicated that 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico may be imposed as early as Feb. 1. He accused the countries of allowing “vast numbers of people” to enter the U.S. illegally.

The next day, the president threatened tariffs on European Union imports and said his administration was weighing a 10% tariff for China as well.

Shortly after the November election, Voice of America reported that the EV market was closely watching to see how Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a Trump ally, would use his influence with the then-president elect to steer the industry's future.

During Trump’s first presidency, tariff-targeted firms experienced a 17% change in their overall supply chain strategy from 2017 to 2019, which is 5 percentage points higher than non-target peers, according to research announced by S&P Global Market Intelligence on Wednesday.

Some tariff-targeted industries faced even larger disruptions, including automobiles and components at 37%, the research found.

The prospect of new Trump tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico was criticized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in late November.

“If imposed, tariffs themselves would not solve our border problems, and instead would send prices soaring, costing the typical American family more than $1,000, with significant harm to U.S. manufacturers, farmers, and ranchers,” John Murphy, the Chamber’s senior vice president and head of international affairs, said in a statement at the time.