One Year of Tariffs and Laundry Operations (Conclusion)

CHICAGO — On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14257.

This order instituted import duties with countries around the globe to counteract trade barriers faced by U.S. exporters.

He called it “Liberation Day.”

Three days later, tariffs increased 10% for nearly all countries, with higher rates for major trading partners scheduled for a few days beyond that.

Since “Liberation Day,” businesses, including those in and serving the industrial and institutional laundry industry, have been trying to keep track of the changes, the negotiated terms, and the tariff delays to stay ahead of the price points of necessary equipment and materials.

In late February, the U.S. Supreme Court threw another wrinkle into the ongoing tariff saga by upholding a lower court ruling that the president’s use of emergency powers to enact most of the tariffs was not legal.

While businesses wait to see how and when reimbursements for the tariffs collected will unfold, the Trump administration is using different methods to enact the duties.

With the chaos and confusion caused by the on-again, off-again tariff situation, American Laundry News reached out to industry insiders as the one-year anniversary approached to share their viewpoints on the situation.

TEXTILES VIEW

On the surface, the institutional laundry business can look deceptively straightforward, says Jeffrey Courey, president and CEO of George Courey, a manufacturer and distributor of reusable textile solutions based in Laval, Quebec. Sheets, gowns and towels move through wash cycles and back into service.

“But the textiles that pass through those machines each day are the final stop in a global supply chain that begins thousands of miles away,” he points out. “Long before a sheet reaches a hospital linen room in the United States, it has likely crossed oceans, cleared customs, and navigated the complexities of international trade policy.

“For decades, that reality has shaped how our industry sources textiles. Countries such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and others have developed large-scale manufacturing ecosystems capable of producing the durable, high-volume linens required by healthcare and hospitality laundries.”

The system has worked reasonably well, Courey points out.

“Operators receive consistent product, suppliers maintain scale, and the economics, while never simple, have been relatively predictable. That predictability was disrupted in 2025,” he says.

“Over the past year, the United States introduced a series of new tariff measures using authorities that historically were not applied this broadly to imported goods. Tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (often described as reciprocal tariffs), along with tariffs introduced under Section 122 of the Trade Act, expanded tariffs across a wide range of imported products.”

Courey points out that, unlike earlier tariff cycles that focused on specific countries, the 2025 measures were notable because they affected imports from many regions around the world.

“For textile distributors and suppliers, higher tariffs translate directly into higher product costs,” he shares. “For laundry operators, the effect is felt primarily through textile replacement budgets. Linens represent a substantial capital investment for healthcare and hospitality laundries, and when the cost of those goods rises, maintaining adequate inventory becomes more expensive.”

That said, the impact on laundries did not appear overnight.

“Importers and distributors typically carry significant inventory within the United States, and much of that inventory entered the country before the new tariffs took effect,” Courey says. “As a result, the first wave of tariff increases was absorbed primarily at the importer level.

“Only after existing inventory cycles began to turn, and replacement orders arrived carrying the new tariff costs, did those increases gradually begin to appear in the pricing that laundries ultimately pay.

“In practice, the effect moved through the market with a delay rather than a sudden shock.”

Textile supply chains are remarkably adaptive, points out Courey. “If tariffs raise costs in one country, production shifts. If a new region becomes more competitive, sourcing evolves. Over time, markets rebalance.

“Anyone who has spent a few decades in the textile business has seen this cycle repeat itself more than once. What makes the current environment challenging is not simply the tariffs themselves, but the uncertainty surrounding them.

“If tariffs increase and remain in place for several years, companies respond accordingly. Importers renegotiate factory pricing, distributors adjust product pricing, and laundries incorporate those changes into long-term operating budgets. After an initial period of adjustment, the system stabilizes.”

Uncertainty is far more disruptive, states Courey.

“When tariff policy changes frequently, or might change tomorrow, it becomes extremely difficult to plan,” he says. “An importer placing an order for textiles today must consider not only the tariff structure that exists at that moment, but what it might look like three or four months from now when that container actually arrives in the United States.

“Anyone who has spent time importing goods understands the problem immediately. You can price a product. You can hedge currency. You can negotiate freight. What you cannot easily hedge is a policy environment that may shift between the time you place an order and the time the goods clear customs. That uncertainty forces businesses to behave differently.

“Instead of optimizing procurement around efficiency and cost, companies start building buffers. They hold more inventory than they would otherwise. They spread orders across more suppliers. They shorten pricing commitments because nobody is quite sure where policy will land next. None of those adjustments is catastrophic. But they add friction throughout the system, and friction ultimately translates into cost.”

Courey goes on to say that healthcare laundries operate in an environment where reliability and cost stability matter enormously.

“Hospitals expect linen programs to run smoothly and predictably,” he says. “Sudden volatility in textile replacement costs makes that planning more complicated. And yet, if there is one thing the institutional laundry industry has demonstrated repeatedly, it is resilience.

“Over the past five years alone, operators have navigated pandemic-driven demand spikes, freight disruptions, raw-material volatility, and labor shortages. Through it all, the industry continued to deliver one of the most essential services in healthcare. Tariffs will not change that.”

Markets will eventually adjust to whatever the long-term tariff structure becomes, says Courey. Production will shift where necessary, pricing will stabilize, and supply chains will settle into a new equilibrium.

“What the industry needs most is clarity,” he declares. “Because once the rules are clear, even if they are not perfect, the institutional laundry sector will do what it has always done remarkably well: adapt, adjust, and keep the linen moving.”

Click HERE to read part 1 with insights from TRSA’s president/CEO and CSCNetwork’s executive director.