Bank of America’s Moynihan Sees Trump’s Tariffs Starting to De-Escalate

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said he expects the Trump administration to reduce trade tensions next year after tariffs sent shockwaves through the US economy in 2025.

Moynihan said in an interview taped in early December and aired Sunday on CBS News’ Face the Nation that Bank of America is now seeing “deescalation, not escalation,” with tariffs averaging 15% and higher rates for countries that haven’t committed to U.S. purchases or lowered nontariff barriers.

“For the broad base of countries, going from 10 percent to 15 percent overall is not a huge impact,” Moynihan said. “And our team says tensions are starting to ease at this point.”

In April, Trump announced that he would impose 10 percent tariffs on all exporters to the United States. In July, it announced a series of new tariffs that, if implemented as announced, are expected to raise the average rate for major trading partners to 15.2%. Bloomberg Economics estimated that the average U.S. tariff rate rose from 2 percent to 14 percent after Trump returned to the White House.

Moynihan added that China has a “different problem” as its North American trading partners review the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement planned for next year. “But globally you can generally see a kind of endpoint here,” he said.

He said high tariffs and uncertainty over trade policy affected small businesses in the second quarter of the year, but some relief came as rates fell. Moynihan said tariffs are less of a concern for small businesses right now than uncertainties about labor availability because some of the Trump administration’s immigration policies “haven’t sunk in yet.”

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