2026 has been a case study in policy whiplash. A tariff is imposed under one legal authority, struck down by the courts, replaced under a different authority, and challenged again, sometimes within the same fortnight. Since the Supreme Court’s February ruling against the government’s IEEPA tariffs, the administration has turned to Section 122, then Section 232 and Section 301 instead, while courts and appeals courts issue rulings that apply to some importers and not others. For any company weighing a market entry, expansion or investment decision that touches trade flows, the ground has been genuinely difficult to read.
Why so many companies are stuck waiting
The instinctive response is to wait for things to settle. It’s an understandable instinct, and a costly one. Even after sentiment improved following the Supreme Court ruling, roughly half of business leaders still report low confidence in executing their own investment plans. A company can plan around a tariff, price it and hedge it. What it can’t confidently plan around is a tariff that might be one figure today and something else entirely by the time an order arrives.
Waiting isn’t free
Trade policy uncertainty doesn’t just complicate a decision, it delays it, and delayed investment and hiring decisions are exactly what drive growth in normal conditions. Smaller companies carry more of this risk than larger ones. In the US, small and medium-sized firms account for the large majority of importing businesses, and they typically have thinner reserves to absorb a wait-and-see period than a multinational can.
A company can plan around a tariff, price it and hedge it. What it can’t confidently plan around is a tariff that might be one figure today and something else entirely by the time an order arrives. What good market research does in this kind of environment.
What good market research does in this kind of environment
The answer isn’t to predict the next tariff ruling. Nobody can do that reliably, and a research programme that tries becomes obsolete the day the policy changes again. The answer is to build the underlying market picture so that it holds up regardless of which way policy moves: scenario-based sizing rather than a single forecast, assumptions stated explicitly enough that you can see exactly what changes if a tariff is reinstated or struck down, and evidence gathered directly rather than assumed.
What this looks like in practice
- Scenario-based market sizing, with sensitivity built in, rather than one point forecast that breaks the moment policy shifts
- Regulatory and tariff exposure treated as a live input to the model, not a one-off footnote
- Assumptions stated explicitly, so it’s clear exactly what a decision depends on
- Local evidence on how tariff costs are actually being absorbed or passed through in a given market, not head-office assumption
- A clear answer to what changes if the policy holds, and what changes if it doesn’t
Two models, one ruling, no restart
A UK industrial components exporter was scoping a first move into the US market in early 2026, just as the Supreme Court’s IEEPA case was pending. Rather than wait for the outcome, the market model was built two ways from the outset: one with the tariff upheld, one with it struck down, each carrying its own pricing, margin and channel assumptions. When the ruling landed in February, the client already had a validated answer under both outcomes and moved to a decis
Where this usually goes wrong
Some companies respond to uncertainty by pausing the research itself, waiting for policy to settle before doing the underlying market work. That gets things backwards. It leaves you least prepared at exactly the moment a decision has to be made quickly. The market you need to understand exists regardless of the policy backdrop. What changes is the sensitivity of a small number of key assumptions, and those are worth stress-testing directly rather than leaving unexamined.
