Tiffany Smith from the National Foreign Trade Council cautions people who are tuned into a recent webinar on tariffs that her presentation could quickly become obsolete.
“I know everyone is wrestling with this,” Smith, the council’s vice president of global trade policy, says at the start of the 45-minute webinar held on April 9, 2025. “It has been a whiplash over these first few months in trying to understand what is actually happening.”
The reciprocal tariffs promised by President Donald Trump had just gone into effect earlier that day on April 9, and members of the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA) were listening in to try to get a better handle on what to do.
A week earlier, on April 2, 2025, a 10% across-the-board tariff had been unveiled. So, the country-by-country reciprocal tariffs had gone into effect just hours before Smith’s webinar.
“The other thing that is a huge challenge is that these tariffs are all layered on top of each other for the most part,” Smith says.
“So, it is adding incredible complexity to customs entries and understanding what the total costs of importing goods are going to be.”
Before the end of the day, and just hours after Smith had wrapped up her presentation, the second Trump administration backed off the country-by-country tariffs, pausing them for 90 days. However, the U.S. and China continued to ratchet up a trade war, with Trump immediately imposing a 125% tariff on China. (A Wall Street Journal timeline outlines what has happened since Trump took office in January through April 10, 2025).
Since the April 9 pause, companies nationwide are again trying to figure out what to do while Trump administration officials meet with trade leaders in other countries. For example, even before the latest pause in reciprocal tariffs on April 9, goods that were already “on the water” on cargo ships were exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, according to the Wall Street Journal.
More Turmoil Expected
Smith warned during her presentation to expect more turmoil because of the “on-again, off-again nature” of the process so far. And much of her presentation included thoughts on what would happen with the reciprocal tariffs had they gone into effect April 9.
The National Foreign Trade Council is an association of U.S. businesses engaged in international trade. As vice president, Smith leads efforts to advance global commercial engagement and strengthen U.S. companies’ competitiveness abroad.
She also serves as the convener for the Tariff Reform Coalition, a broad-based alliance of trade associations representing U.S. manufacturers, exporters, retailers, agricultural and food producers, and other supply chain stakeholders adversely affected by Section 232 and other tariffs, according to FPA.
John Richard, FPA’s director of government relations, helped organize the event with Smith. At the start of the April 9 webinar, Richard points out that the presentation by Smith was one of the best attended in FPA’s recent history.
“Like every other industry, we are navigating through the day to day of Trump’s second administration,” he says at the start of the webinar.
He and others at FPA intend to routinely update FPA members on the latest discussions through a newsletter available to FPA members. FPA also created an informal trade working group to advise FPA on how to respond to changes.
Thomas A. Barstow is senior editor of FlexPack VOICE®.