David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, calls this "tariff engineering."
"Where a pocket is located, what kinds of trim are attached, whether it's button or snaps — all of these things might enter into the kinds of decisions that go into tariff engineering," he says.
But when decisions on tariffs turn on a dime, it's hard to plan.
This is the challenge for Chris Miller, whose job involves vetting and buying meats, cheeses, seafood and produce sold at Mom's Organic Market, a grocery chain based in Rockville, Md.
Depending on the season, the produce aisle relies heavily on imports of Mexican avocados, tomatoes, cucumbers and stone fruit.
"When the Mexican season is in for a lot of these items, that is the primary source," Miller says. He says new tariffs on Mexico would drive up prices on imports from other countries, too.
"If the market goes up as a result of the tariffs, then — in my experience — the Canadian market will most likely follow," he says.
This already happened with frozen fish. Prices increased everywhere after the U.S. raised tariffs on imports from China.
Mom's Organic gets a much wider range of goods from Mexico, so Miller says he isn't sure how consumers might react to the new tariffs — or what the impact on his sales might be.
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