{"id":24357,"date":"2026-02-23T10:42:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=24357"},"modified":"2026-02-23T10:42:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:42:24","slug":"ceos-against-trump-tariffs-are-still-silent-after-supreme-court-decision-no-upside-in-speaking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=24357","title":{"rendered":"CEOs against Trump tariffs are still silent after Supreme Court decision: &#8216;No upside in speaking up&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2262203065-e1771839653576.jpg?w=2048\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Good morning. <\/strong>Now that the Supreme Court ruled against Donald Trump using his emergency powers to impose tariffs, what\u2019s next? After all, the U.S. president responded by immediately creating tariffs under a different law, Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. And the court gave no guidance on how leaders can recoup the money they paid under a policy deemed illegal. For the moment, at least, America\u2019s protectionist strategy remains in place. So what\u2019s next for leaders?<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Bring in the lawyers.<\/strong> Companies need to track every customs duty that can be directly attributed to tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which accounts for about half of all tariffs. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said it\u2019s up to the lower courts to decide how refunds will be paid. Companies will have to not only document that they paid but also how much they may have to spend to recover those payments: One manufacturer told me on Friday that he\u2019s not convinced his company will seek a remedy as the duties impacted a relatively small portion of his supply chain.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The silence continues.<\/strong> While many CEOs have been reluctant to criticize Trump\u2019s tariffs in public, they\u2019ve been vociferous in complaints behind the scenes. At the Yale CEO Caucus in Washington a year ago, for example, more than two-thirds of CEOs said they thought the tariffs were illegal, harmful and would be passed along through higher costs for customers. While the Supreme Court decision may have pierced the president\u2019s \u201cseeming invincibility,\u201d it\u2019s done little to calm their nerves. \u201cThere is no upside in speaking out\u201d against this president, one CEO said when I called him on Friday night. \u201cYou do what\u2019s right internally, which includes staying off his radar.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Protectionism is here to stay. <\/strong>In addition to exploring other policy levels for imposing tariffs, President Trump has shifted the dynamics of global trade. Tariffs beget more tariffs and other leaders are feeling pressure to forge new alliances and build up their own infrastructure to keep jobs at home. The administration has said it expects trading partners to honor the deals they forged as tariffs were mounting. Don\u2019t shelve those reshoring plans.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keep an eye on Costco.<\/strong> As my colleague Phil Wahba points out, Costco\u2019s decision to sue the Trump Administration over Liberation Day tariffs not only left it well placed for refunds but also reinforced its reputation of looking out for customers. Instead of staying silent on a move that many saw as illegal at the time, and the Supreme Court reinforced, Costco framed the move as a business decision that impacted their ability to create an optimal selection of merchandise at the best price. Clear communication kept the focus on customers.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Top leadership news<\/h3>\n<p><b>Industries need workers targeted by Trump&#8217;s immigration crackdown<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">A <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">new report by the San Francisco Fed<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> notes that the influx of unauthorized immigrants during the Biden administration coincided with a need for laborers in industries like manufacturing and construction. President Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown risks shortages in those industries as they gear up to build AI data centers and residential housing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Iran conflict could drastically change gas prices<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Analysts <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">tell <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Fortune<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> that gas could either skyrocket to $5 per gallon if war breaks out in Iran or fall to less than $2.50 per gallon if diplomacy prevails. \u201cIran is infinitely more desperate today,\u201d one analyst said, and may be willing to disrupt the essential Strait of Hormuz if the standoff continues to escalate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The deficit is climbing fast<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The CBO\u2019s latest 10-year outlook <\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\">shows<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> deficits and debt climbing even faster than it warned a year ago, driven by Trump-era tax cuts, higher spending, and swelling interest costs. By 2036, annual borrowing is projected to approach 6% of GDP and push debt well past its World War II record.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>The markets<\/h3>\n<p><b>S&amp;P 500<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> futures are down 0.27% this morning. The last session closed up 0.69%. The <\/span><b>STOXX Europe 600<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> was down 0.06% in early trading. <\/span><b>The U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> was down 0.05% in early trading.<\/span><b> Japan\u2019s markets <\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\">are closed today.<\/span><b> Chinese markets <\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\">are closed for the New Year. <\/span><b>South Korea\u2019s KOSPI <\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\">was up 0.65%.<\/span><b> India\u2019s NIFTY 50<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> was up 0.55%.<\/span><b> Bitcoin<\/b><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> was down to $66K.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Around the watercooler<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The Russian economy is now eating itself to death as Putin\u2019s war on Ukraine destroys future capacity, former central bank adviser says<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> by Jason Ma<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The Nobel laureate who co-wrote \u2018Why Nations Fail\u2019 warns U.S. democracy won\u2019t survive unless these two things change<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> by Jake Angelo<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> by Sasha Rogelberg<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight:400\">Peter Thiel and other tech billionaires are publicly shielding their children from the products that made them rich<\/span><span style=\"font-weight:400\"> by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez<\/span><\/p>\n<p>CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams, Claire Zillman and Lee Clifford.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#CEOs #Trump #tariffs #silent #Supreme #Court #decision #upside #speaking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning. Now that the Sup&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[451,526,504,1037,4442,14134,503,490,599,1977],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}