Yesterday was April 2, or “Liberation Day” as President Trump called it. Liberation from what? Unfair trade practices, according to Trump. So, yesterday he announced “10% tariffs on all imports into the United States, and even higher tariffs on goods from about 60 countries or trading blocs that have a high trade deficit with the US,” as reported by Bryan Mena at CNN. “That includes China and the European Union, which will be levied new duties of 34% and 20%, respectively.”
Too bad Liberation Day wasn’t the day before, on April Fools’ Day.
As you can imagine, there is already an avalanche of analysis and commentary about these tariffs in the press and on social media, with more to come in the minutes, hours, and days to come. And as we’ve already seen so far in 2025, these tariffs can change or go away completely at the drop of a hat (or to put it in more modern terms, at the drop of a post on X or Truth Social).
I’ll let economists and others comment on the ripple effects of these tariffs on global trade and world economies. I want to focus instead on whether all these changes will finally force companies to ditch their Excel spreadsheets and invest in proper Global Trade Management (GTM) software.
In a 2014 post titled, “A New Era For Global Trade Management Software?” I wrote the following:
The biggest reason why the GTM software market isn’t larger today is that many manufacturers and retailers still view global trade management as just paperwork.
This was true more than a decade ago [in 2004], when in a think tank I conducted with supply chain executives, a VP of Customs Compliance at a large pharmaceutical company expressed her frustration with the group: “You would never hire someone off the street to manage your finance operations. But that’s exactly what we do to manage our global trade operations. It’s just viewed as paperwork at our company.”
Then in a February 2018 Talking Logistics post, I shared the following experience:
Several years ago, I attended a conference where a young professional from a medical device company gave a great presentation about free trade agreements — what they are, why they are important, and how to use them effectively as part of your global trade operations.
During the Q&A session afterwards, a young professional seated next to me asked the presenter if she was using any type of software at her company to manage free trade agreements. “No, we use Excel,” she said. “We bring in attorneys and trade experts to help us understand the regulations and develop the formulas, and we just enter everything into Excel. I wish we had some software designed specifically for trade, but it’s not something our company has decided to invest in yet.”
The young professional who asked the question, who worked at a leading toy company, replied back, “Yeah, we use Excel too.”
So, two leading companies in their respective industries, managing a highly strategic and risky supply chain process with Excel spreadsheets. Fast forward to today and it wouldn’t surprise me if those two companies (and many others) are still using spreadsheets to manage their trade compliance processes.
Fast forward another seven years to today, and I hope that just like the Covid pandemic provided CEOs and CFOs with a crash course on the role and importance of supply chain management, all the recent changes with tariffs and trade policies will provide them with a lesson on the role and importance of global trade compliance.
The good news is that it seems like things have started to change, based on a research study conducted by Descartes Systems Group. According to the press release:
The study showed that 39% of fast-growing companies (those expecting greater than 15% growth over the next two years) consider trade compliance to be a competitive advantage and not only a regulatory requirement, compared to 22% of slower-growing companies (those with less than 5% growth expectations).
Furthermore, 57% of companies surveyed believe technology is also very or extremely important for competitive advantage in trade compliance strategies.
I saw signs of this starting to happen when the Section 301 tariffs on China were implemented in 2018. In a survey we conducted with our Indago supply chain research community at the time, one of our members (a supply chain executive from a $1B+ manufacturer) shared the following:
“It has brought international trade compliance into the limelight and I find myself talking to executives that I have never spoken to before. It has given me opportunities to educate leadership concerning international trade and to communicate other risks as well. I overhear people at lunch discussing the Section 301 tariffs and I take advantage of those informal opportunities to correct misconceptions, raise awareness of trade risk and show them how international trade impacts their position within the company. It’s a great time to be in international trade compliance.”
The bottom line is that in light of so-called “Liberation Day” and everything that’s been happening this year with tariffs and trade regulations, if you’re still viewing trade compliance as just paperwork that you can manage with Excel spreadsheets, you’re putting yourself in a very risky and potentially costly situation.
