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the Joshua Schall Audio ExperienceAuthor: Joshua Schall
Welcome to the Joshua Schall Audio Experience On my podcast, youll hear episodes of my popular short-form Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) news segment "Consumed", a long-form CPG entrepreneurship interview segment "Formula For:", deeper dive segments "Deep Dish CPG", public speaking engagements, and any of my new and current thoughts that I record specifically for this audio experience! Leave a review on iTunes and let me know what you think! Language: en Genres: Business Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Trump 2.0 "Global Trade" Changes | Everything the Supplement Industry Needs to Know
Friday, 14 February, 2025
Trump is back…but should stakeholders operating within the intersecting CPG categories of functional foods, functional beverages, and nutritional supplements be cheerful about his return to the oval office? This will certainly not sound like a “hot take” or anything, but the second Trump presidential term will undoubtedly offer a mixture of risk and reward…ushering in a new era of market volatility. As press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently pointed out, "there has never been a president who communicates with the American people as openly and authentically as Donald Trump.” But while I personally enjoy that operating model…it does create an economic environment that I recently described to an industry colleague as “best suited for master sailors.” And that’s because the art of both the sailor (and businessperson) is to leave nothing to chance…but sailors are artists whose medium is the wind and today’s businesspeople must be artists whose medium is correctly spotting Donald Trump’s subtle hints that reveal upcoming events. Furthermore, I believe a key to potentially benefitting from the Trump 2.0 “driver of demand” requires understanding how to position against a few of his known (but converging) “the art of the deal” tendencies. And these would be (1) a little hyperbole never hurts, (2) confirm an impression they were already predisposed to believe, (3) never get too attached to one deal or one approach, and (4) sometimes your best decisions are the ones you don’t make. Finally, it’s extremely important to consider rate of speed and level of efficiency surrounding Trump 2.0 changes. Since this is a “been here, done that” kind of thing, Trump won’t fumble through the initial phase of his term he will have a better understanding around bottlenecks and getting around chokepoints…including how to flex unilateral powers. Also, given that the House and Senate are Republican majorities (at least for the next two years), that political trifecta usually creates efficiency and makes for stickier policy changes. But the inspiration behind my latest first principles thinking content piece (or I guess content miniseries) was a Trump 2.0 section titled “rhetoric foreshadowing action is greater than embellished negotiation tactics” that I included into many of functional CPG brand and supply side client presentations during the last quarter of 2024. And while each of those client presentations were packed with diverse personalized insights…I’m confident this “Trump 2.0” content miniseries, filled with a refined (and expanded) version of my generalized “base case” strategies, will be extremely valuable to my regular audience. So, just to set the stage…you can expect this “Trump 2.0” content miniseries to initially include four loosely titled parts; regulatory, global trade, financial, and commerce. And I figured part two of this Trump 2.0 content miniseries should be “global trade" because he made imposing tariffs central to his economic program. Moreover, with most functional CPG inputs (whether various ingredients or raw materials) coming from countries of origin outside the United States (and China having near monopolies currently on many portions of those inputs), these tariffs can materially affect two key elements (pricing and overall supply stability). And that means industry stakeholders don't share the same overwhelming level of optimism (and excitement) they’ve expressed surrounding Trump’s health agency selections.
