Billionaire hedge fund manager and founder of Pershing Square Capital Management, Bill Ackman, has issued a warning about the immediate and devastating consequences of the Trump administration's tariffs, calling for an urgent 90-day pause to prevent the collapse of small and medium-sized businesses across the United States.
In a detailed post shared Wednesday, Ackman revealed he has been inundated with messages from small business owners and founders expressing growing fears about their survival in light of the tariff hikes.
These concerns, he said, are echoed by the worsening macroeconomic indicators: a falling stock market, rising bond yields, and a weakening dollar.
“These are not the markers of successful policy,” Ackman wrote.
Citing a personal investment in a cold brew coffee startup, Ackman shared an email from the company’s founder, who outlined the crippling effect of the tariffs on key imports such as glass bottles from China, chai from India, and coffee beans from Ethiopia, Peru, and Canada.
The combined result is a projected 60 per cent compression in gross margin, pushing profitability to the brink and threatening the viability of the brand, which is currently available at Whole Foods.
“What is particularly concerning is the sudden and sweeping inclusion of coffee and tea in US tariffs, reversing a long-standing precedent dating back to the McKinley Tariff of 1890,” the founder wrote in his email to Ackman.
Ackman noted that essential commodities like coffee and tea—impossible to source domestically at scale—had long been spared from trade levies.
Their inclusion in the latest round of tariffs marked a dangerous shift in US trade policy, one that harms sectors with little to no alternative sourcing options.
Another small business owner, who runs a home audio and video installation company, told Ackman that the abrupt cost hikes from vendors could force him to raise client prices by nearly double overnight.
“If clients resist price hikes and my employees demand higher wages to offset their rising cost of living, we end up in a lose-lose scenario—no spending and no jobs,” the business owner warned.
Ackman concluded his appeal with a direct message to President Donald Trump, urging him to support a 90-day moratorium on the new tariffs.
“A 90-day pause will enable @realDonaldTrump to accomplish his objectives without destroying small businesses in the short term,” he wrote. “May cooler heads prevail.”
Earlier, while acknowledging that the US has long been at a disadvantage in global trade, Ackman cited that Trump is not an economist and therefore relied on his advisors to do these calculations so he can determine policy.
“The global economy is being taken down because of bad math,” added Ackman.
Ackman, who had endorsed Trump's run for President, also called for the tariffs to be paused to avert an "economic nuclear war.”
