Here Come the Tariff Disclosures…

Second quarter earnings releases are now picking up steam, and as the volume of filings continues to accelerate in coming weeks, analysts are bound to start seeing more disclosures about the economic effects of tariffs. 

To be clear, companies don’t need to file any formal disclosure about tariffs under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles; and in the two dozen or so Q2 2025 earnings releases we’ve already seen, a majority of filers aren’t saying anything specific about tariffs. 

At the same time, however, nothing in federal securities law forbids a company from making a disclosure about tariffs either, and some filers have done so. Let’s take a look at some of the interesting ones we’ve seen so far. 

One example is aluminum maker Alcoa ($AA), which filed its Q2 earnings release on July 16. The company reported paying $115 million in tariff costs for importing aluminum from Canada into the United States:

In the second quarter 2025, Alcoa incurred approximately $115 million for tariff costs on imports of aluminum to the U.S. from Canada. U.S. Section 232 tariffs were 25 percent from March 12, 2025 until increasing to 50 percent on June 4, 2025.

That’s interesting because Alcoa paid $115 million in that quarter while the tariff rate was rising — which means tariff costs in Q3 could well be even higher, since the tariff rate went from 25 to 50 percent in June and might stay there. 

For some perspective, Alcoa also reported cost of goods sold at $2.65 billion for the quarter; the $115 million in tariffs included in that number is 4.3 percent of the total.

Levi Strauss

Another example comes from blue jeans giant Levi Strauss ($LEVI), which reported Q2 earnings on July 10. 

Levi did raise its full-year revenue and EPS outlook, “including the impact of tariffs.” But the company also trimmed its expected growth in gross margin from 100 basis points to 80, “due to a 20 basis point impact from tariffs after mitigation plans.”

Levi did warn that its latest guidance assumes tariffs from China will remain at 30 percent and at 10 percent for the rest of the world. That might hold true — but then again, it might not. So that’s yet another example of how Calcbench can help you tie current macro-economic events like trade policy to the companies you follow.

Conagra

Food giant Conagra Brands ($CAG) filed its quarterly results on July 10. Cost of goods sold did fall 1.3 percent from the year-earlier period, from $2.1 billion one year ago to $2.07 billion in the quarter that ended May 25 — but overall revenue fell even more, by 4.3 percent. So Conagra was still paying more for its foodstuffs and other raw materials in relative terms. 

Here’s how Conagra described those cost pressures in further detail:

The company also expects cost of goods sold inflation to continue at an elevated level into fiscal 2026. Guidance anticipates core inflation to be approximately 4%. In addition, the company expects an impact to fiscal 2026 from previously announced U.S. tariffs. While the tariff situation remains fluid, guidance contemplates a 50% tariff rate on imported tin plate steel and aluminum, a 30% rate on limited imports from China, and a 10% reciprocal rate on imports from certain other countries. Combined, these tariffs are expected to increase cost of goods sold by approximately 3% annually, prior to mitigating actions including accelerated cost savings initiatives, sourcing alternatives, and targeted pricing actions. Taken together, the company expects total cost of goods sold inflation of approximately 7%.

So the next question for Conagra will be the extent to which it will pass along those higher costs to consumers, to preserve its own profit margins. Operating and net income margins will be the disclosures to watch in Q3 and beyond.

Autoliv

Our last example today is Autoliv ($ALV), Swedish maker of airbags, seatbelts, and other automotive safety systems. Autoliv filed its second-quarter earnings on July 18. 

Autoliv had rather upbeat numbers: net sales, operating income, operating margin, and EPS all higher than the year-ago period. Tariffs did squeeze the company somewhat, but apparently executives found a solution, too:

We estimate that the negative impact from U.S. tariffs was around 35 basis points on operating margin, as we managed to pass on most of the tariff costs to our customers. 

How much is “most,” exactly? Elsewhere in its earnings release, Autoliv said it recovered 80 percent of its tariff costs in the second quarter. Presumably that comes from a mix of cost cuts and higher prices passed along to customers. Then came this passage (emphasis added by us):

The effects from the new tariffs imposed in the first quarter did not have a material impact on our profitability in the second quarter, as we achieved customer compensations for almost all tariff costs. It is our ambition and expectation that we will continue to pass on tariff costs to our customers, although there is significant uncertainty. We recovered around 80% of the tariffs in the second quarter, and we expect to recover most of what remains later in the year. The impact of the tariffs not yet recovered on our operating income was around $7 million negative in the quarter.

Net income in Q2 was $168 million, so one could say that Autoliv also had “earnings before tariffs” of $175 million — that is, the $168 million reported, plus the $7 million in tariff costs the company couldn’t pass along.

To be clear, earnings before tariffs isn’t a thing. At least, not yet. But with so many tariff disclosures coming soon, we’ll need to see what else might come next.