The news in the active lifestyle industry was dominated in 2025 by two recurring themes: Consumer Uncertainty and Increased Tariffs on goods shipped into the United States from just about anywhere worldwide.

The new realities of the tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration hit the market (see here) in early April 2025 with full force but those new realities quickly changed, evolving into an unpredictable series of changes and reciprocal penalties by both his Administration and foreign governments. The overwhelming theme for the year, primarily visible (or audible)  around quarterly earnings presentations and conference calls, led to a new term adopted by U.S. businesses — Tariff Uncertainty.

“While we can’t predict future tariff changes, we are planning our business at the current rates,” noted one CFO on a conference call with analysts describing their process for developing guidance. “The impact from these incremental rates equates to approximately $40 million in the second half of 2025 and approximately $90 million on an annual basis, based on our current sourcing mix.”

That pretty much summed up the conversations in boardrooms across the country as companies tried to plan their businesses around that constantly moving target.

Trump’s propensity for negotiating new “deals” on the fly, particularly with countries that pushed back hard against his administration’s often punitive actions, and then backing off his position in “negotiations,” earned him a new moniker (mostly on the left) as “TACO” Trump, or “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

As the market enters 2026, the question of price increases looms large, as many who attempted to hold the line on pricing are now open to, if not already implementing, price increases. The brands and retailers that see less price resistance have moved in that direction, while those brands, retailers and/or products that exhibit greater price sensitivity may be forced to bear the impact of the tariffs.

One survey of 500 U.S. e-commerce executives found that 76 percent had increased the price of goods to mitigate the cost of the new and expected tariffs. On average, retailers are reportedly passing along 51 percent of the cost of Trump’s import taxes on to consumers, according to the survey’s report.

Tariffs are now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the presentation before the Court left many analysts with the impression, based on questioning from the Supremes, that the challenge to the Trump Tariffs will not succeed. If the Court rules against President Trump, even more uncertainty may emerge in the market. Will the increased tariffs that companies paid to-date be refunded to them? Will those companies refund price increases due to tariffs to their customers and/or consumers?

See below for SGB Media’s reporting on a wide range of tariff issues. The actual number of articles mentioning tariffs in the SGB Media database is twice what is presented here but can be found by searching for “tariff” in the search box in the main header above. The articles below are separated by month from the initial tariff announcement date forward, but there was plenty of tariff talk once the votes were counted in November 2024 and companies began speculating about what Trump’s win would mean for their businesses. Those articles, while fewer in number, are also broken out for Q1 2025 and Q4 2024.

Top Trump Tariff Articles for 2025:

December 2025

November 2025

October 2025

June 2025

May 2025

April 2025

First Quarter 2025

Fourth Quarter 2024