Key Points
— PwC’s April 2026 executive survey of 633 US CEOs, CFOs, COOs, and board members — conducted March 12-20 and published April 14 — found 86% treat tariffs as a permanent planning assumption. The survey marks the first institutional data showing US corporate planning horizons have normalized tariffs as a structural feature rather than a cyclical shock.
— Rohit Kumar, co-leader of PwC’s National Tax Office, told clients the expectation extends explicitly “beyond the current administration.” Kristin Bohl, PwC’s Customs and International Trade principal, said CEOs are no longer planning around short-term tariffs and instead treating them as “part of the new normal for doing business, with the expectation they’ll be in place for years.”
— The implication for Latin America is structural. Mexico faces 35% CEO exposure to tariffs — the highest of any country tracked in PwC’s Global CEO Survey — while Brazilian agribusiness, Colombian coffee, Argentine beef, and Chilean copper exporters now face a multi-year policy horizon instead of a bilateral negotiation window that resets every election cycle.
The PwC finding that Trump tariffs permanent is now the base case for 86% of US executives is the kind of data point that reshapes capital allocation decisions across Latin America — not because the tariffs themselves are new, but because the planning assumption that they reverse with the next election has collapsed.
US corporate America has quietly decided Trump’s tariffs are here to stay — and the consequences for Latin America’s export economies are only beginning to be priced in. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that a PwC survey of 633 US executives conducted in mid-March and published April 14 found 86% treating Trump tariffs permanent as a baseline planning assumption, with the expectation they will persist “beyond the current administration.”
That finding — 86% of US CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CIOs, CTOs, risk leaders, tax leaders, and board members — is what transforms the tariff story from cyclical to structural. It also reshapes how Mexican auto suppliers, Brazilian coffee exporters, Argentine beef producers, and every other Latin American firm selling into the US consumer market should be thinking about the next five years.
The political cycle is no longer the operative time horizon. Trade policy is.
What the PwC Survey on Trump Tariffs Permanent Actually Found
The survey covered 633 US executives across consumer markets (20%), energy and industrials (27%), financial services (24%), health industries (9%), and technology, media, and telecommunications (18%). The fieldwork ran March 12-20, 2026 — meaning responses were collected after the Supreme Court’s February ruling striking down IEEPA tariff authority and after the administration pivoted to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Among consumer-markets leaders specifically, 88% have baked tariffs into baseline forecasts. In the same segment, 40% cite adjusting trade strategy as their number-one action taken since January 2025, tied with 38% who cite increased US capex and manufacturing investment. The two are inseparable: nearshoring and reshoring are the operational translation of the tariff permanence thesis.
Ninety percent of respondents say their company is in a stronger position than two years ago. Sixty-seven percent say they are ahead of competitors on speed of decision-making. The numbers paint a picture of executives who have adapted — not of executives who are waiting for the political weather to change.
The Shift from 2017-2020
This is a sharp departure from Trump’s first term. When the 2018 tariff rounds hit, US corporate America lobbied aggressively against them, and much of the planning framework treated the duties as a bilateral negotiation posture that would be unwound by a Democratic administration. Joe Biden campaigned against those tariffs before winning the 2020 election.
By the time Biden left office in 2025, most of Trump’s original tariffs remained — and Biden added his own, including on Chinese electric vehicles. That experience appears to have recalibrated corporate planning assumptions. The lesson US executives internalized: tariffs once imposed do not come off easily, regardless of which party wins.
Rohit Kumar’s observation that PwC clients now expect tariffs to last “beyond the current administration” is the formal recognition of that lesson. It is the opposite of the “wait-it-out” posture that defined the first-term corporate response.
Mexico: The 35% Exposure Country
PwC’s separate Global CEO Survey, released in January at Davos, found 35% of Mexican CEOs reporting high or extreme exposure to tariff-driven financial loss over the next 12 months — the highest figure of any country tracked. That compares to 28% in mainland China, 22% in the United States, and 6% across the Middle East.
The nearshoring Mexico 2026 calculus shifts materially under a permanent-tariff assumption. Section 122 tariffs expire at 150 days without congressional action — the current 10% surcharge on non-USMCA Mexican goods sunsets around July 24, 2026 unless extended. USMCA-compliant exporters remain insulated, but non-compliant firms face a time-limited exposure that either resolves through congressional extension, a negotiated USMCA review outcome, or replacement authority.
USMCA compliance rates jumped from 45% to 89% between January and November 2025 as Mexican exporters built the supply-chain certification infrastructure required to qualify. That investment is durable — it does not reverse regardless of the tariff regime — and it locks Mexico into a privileged position relative to non-USMCA Latin American competitors.
What It Means for Brazil and the Southern Cone
For Brazil, the permanent-tariff thesis has two direct implications. First, the Section 301 investigation into Brazilian Pix, ethanol, IP enforcement, and deforestation — active since July 2025 — is more likely to produce enduring trade restrictions than the typical bilateral bargaining resolution. Second, the $166 billion CAPE tariff refund being processed for IEEPA-struck-down duties unwinds only the specific IEEPA layer, not the Section 122 or Section 301 frameworks the administration has pivoted toward.
The EU-Mercosur provisional implementation on May 1 becomes more strategically important under these assumptions. A Brazil locked out of easy US market access needs the European channel to absorb surplus export capacity. The same logic applies to Mercosur’s accelerated trade tracks with the UAE, Canada, and the ASEAN bloc.
Argentine beef exporters, Chilean copper producers, Colombian coffee growers, and Peruvian fishmeal shippers are all operating in the same new planning environment: US tariff exposure is no longer a two-year problem that resolves with an election.
The Capital Expenditure Signal
One of the more striking findings is that US executives are not waiting for tariff clarity before committing capital. Ninety-five percent of consumer-markets leaders plan to maintain, increase, or start new technology and AI investments in the next 12 months. Thirty-six percent have already rebalanced their workforce between human roles and AI.
That capex pattern is the operational signal underneath the survey headline. If tariffs were expected to reverse, the rational posture would be to delay capital commitments until the regulatory horizon clarified. Instead, US firms are building fixed plant, AI infrastructure, and nearshored supply chains around a baseline assumption that the current tariff structure persists.
That means the tariffs are shaping capital stock — not just trade flows. Capital stock is much harder to undo than a policy announcement.
The Political Counterpoint
A separate Chief Executive magazine survey of 329 US CEOs in April 2025 found nearly 70% personally disapproved of Trump’s tariffs. The PwC survey one year later is not a reversal of that sentiment — it is a reconciliation with it. Executives can simultaneously dislike the policy and plan around it as permanent.
The 2028 US election remains a theoretical reversal catalyst, but PwC‘s data suggests the market no longer prices it as a high-probability one. Both parties have now endorsed tariffs in practice. The political-economy assumption that globalization defaults back after a populist moment has weakened substantially in US corporate planning.
For Latin American governments negotiating trade terms, this changes the leverage calculus. Waiting out an administration that would happily extend the status quo is not a strategy.
What to Watch
Three near-term markers will test the PwC thesis. First, the July 24 Section 122 expiration on the 10% global surcharge. Congressional extension confirms the permanence thesis; inaction forces the administration to rotate to another statutory framework.
Second, the USMCA review process opening July 1, 2026. A successful renewal with USMCA-compliance thresholds largely intact would functionally lock Mexico’s structural advantage in place for another sexenio. Third, the Section 301 outcomes on Brazil and potentially on other Latin American jurisdictions — those findings create country-specific duty structures that outlast any single administration.
For Latin American CFOs, the takeaway is operational. Strategic planning horizons should assume Trump tariffs permanent as the base case and treat reversal scenarios as the tail risk, not the reverse. That is the opposite of how most regional boardrooms framed trade exposure a year ago.
US executives have changed their minds. The question for the region is how quickly Latin American governments and corporates adjust to a buyer that has stopped pretending this is temporary.
Related Coverage: Nearshoring Mexico 2026 Guide • $166B Tariff Refund Portal • Trump’s Tariff Shock on Mexican Auto