CEOs break silence on Trump trade war

In the days after Trump announced the sweeping levies last week, chief executives stuck to privately channeling their frustrations to trade groups and lobbyists. Some hastily arranged new meetings on trade with Trump officials, sometimes receiving unsatisfying answers, executives and corporate advisers say.

Now, after a three-day market selloff and warnings from Wall Street titans such as Bill Ackman and Jamie Dimon, more business leaders are openly voicing concern.

“Tariff is not a beautiful word. I disagree with that—we are in a global economy," said Bahram Akradi, CEO of the high-end fitness chain Life Time Group Holdings, in an interview Monday.

“This cannot stay," he added. “You cannot apply this type of gridlock and this much friction to the world’s trade."

The CEO of Ethan Allen, which manufactures 75% of its furniture across North America, also suggested the president retreat from the broad tariff offensive he unveiled in the White House Rose Garden last week.

“There’s nothing wrong in coming down—it’s not a failure," said Farooq Kathwari, CEO of the Danbury, Conn.-based furniture maker. A mountain climber, Kathwari compared the rollout of the tariff policies to an ascent up a steep cliff. “If you go too fast, you can get water in your lungs."

More CEOS will be pressed in calls with investors this week to divulge how Trump’s tariffs could affect their companies’ operations and bottom lines as earnings season starts. Walmart executives face shareholders at an investor day Wednesday, while Delta Air Lines reports earnings the same day. Wells Fargo presents its results Friday, followed by other big banks next week.

Some of the first leaders to speak out have been vocal Trump supporters. Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager behind Pershing Square, called for a 90-day pause in the tariffs to negotiate with other countries, warning that the alternative was “a self-induced, economic nuclear winter."

“We are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital," Ackman wrote in a social-media post on X over the weekend.

Bill Ackman called for a 90-day pause in the tariffs to negotiate with other countries.

Ryan Cohen, the Trump-supporting CEO of the videogame retailer GameStop, posted on X last week that the tariffs “are turning me into a dem."

A day later, he quipped: “I can’t wait for my $10,000 made in the USA iPhone." GameStop has already taken a hit: Nintendo said it would indefinitely halt U.S. preorders of the Nintendo Switch 2 because of new planned tariffs.

Even Elon Musk, one of Trump’s most influential advisers, took a swipe at the White House’s trade agenda. On Monday, the billionaire posted a well-known video of economist Milton Friedman touting free trade by explaining how the component parts of a pencil require complex supply chains.

Trump is vowing to stick to the tariff plans, calling them on Truth Social this week “a beautiful thing to behold" that would reap economic prosperity. When asked Monday whether the tariffs are permanent or up for negotiation, Trump said: “They can both be true."

One reason corporate leaders have been reluctant to speak out is because many feared retribution from the Trump administration, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management. Over the past month, the administration has targeted several prominent law firms with ties to the president’s political and legal adversaries with punitive executive orders. It has also called on federal agencies to identify companies and other entities for potential probes into their diversity practices.

Since last week, Sonnenfeld said he has heard from the frustrated CEOs of several major public companies that trade groups should more forcefully oppose the tariffs or front collective statements from their big-company members.

Individually, “they don’t want to be the lightning rod," Sonnenfeld said. “Then it becomes personalized to them."

Life Time’s Akradi said he hoped officials would strike deals with countries to lower tariffs worldwide: “If they could prove that out and get some wins that way, it would be actually good for everyone. If they don’t, then I believe this last move will prove to be nuclearly bad."

Tariffs could also spook already cautious consumers, warned Kathwari, the Ethan Allen CEO. Kathwari said he applauded efforts to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. But he questioned the way the tariffs had been implemented.

“Change is important. It was needed. The issue always is: How fast, how much?" he said. “They’ve gone up too far. The president needed to shock people, which he has done, and make changes, because without a shock, changes don’t take place. So I think there’ll be some balancing."

Other executives are following a circumspect approach. Bruce Champeau, chief executive of furniture chain Room & Board, said he has largely avoided talking about tariffs publicly because there are so many unknowns.

“We’ll see how it plays out," he said. “It remains to be seen whether or not this proves to be, ultimately, what President Trump and his administration is looking to achieve."

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com