The Trump administration’s latest round of tariffs has sent shockwaves through the U.S. economy, creating both uncertainty and opportunity for different players. As President Donald Trump announced an extension of the tariff delay on China and imposed new aluminum tariffs on over 400 products on August 21, 2025, the ripple effects are being felt across industries, from agriculture in Ohio to Wall Street investment firms and the average American household.
According to filings reviewed by Sludge, Cantor Fitzgerald, the firm controlled by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, invested $120.7 million in the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund and $116.8 million in Robinhood stock on August 14, 2025. This move came shortly after Lutnick received a waiver on July 8, 2025, allowing him to participate in government matters that could directly impact Cantor Fitzgerald—raising eyebrows about potential conflicts of interest. Bartlett Naylor, a financial policy advocate at Public Citizen, didn’t mince words, telling Sludge, “When the Oxford English Dictionary next updates its conflict-of-interest definition, it’ll use Cantor Fitzgerald’s crypto ventures and the Lutnick connection as prime example.”
The intrigue doesn’t stop there. Bo Hines, executive director of the Presidential Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, floated the idea in April that tariff revenues could be used to fund a new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The interplay between government policy and private investment has become increasingly complex, especially as Trump’s tariffs reshape business incentives. Cantor Fitzgerald’s investments weren’t limited to crypto; they also bought into chip producer AMD, Tesla, Alibaba, and Robinhood. Analysts noted that some of these companies, like Alibaba, are relatively insulated from tariffs, while others, such as Tesla, stand to benefit directly.
Meanwhile, other Trump administration insiders have taken steps to avoid the appearance of impropriety—at least on paper. David Sacks, the administration’s crypto and AI adviser, sold around $200 million in crypto investments at the start of Trump’s second term. Yet, like Lutnick, Sacks received a waiver, arguing that “the financial interests covered by this waiver are not so substantial as to be deemed likely to affect the integrity of your services to the Government.” Still, the lines between public service and private gain remain blurry. On July 11, 2025, AI firm Vultron announced a $22 million investment from Craft Ventures, Sacks’ venture capital firm. Vultron, which is actively pursuing federal contracts, publicly touted Sacks’ involvement, saying, “Craft Ventures, co-founded by White House AI adviser David Sacks, backed the round, signaling investor confidence that Vultron is the category-defining system for AI-driven federal growth.”
All of this is unfolding against a backdrop of economic turbulence. The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) has warned that Trump’s unpredictable tariffs are “delaying growth, disrupting operations, and raising legal concerns among companies.” The NFTC further cautioned, “Economists and industry experts warn of broad potential impacts on supply chains.” In advanced manufacturing, four in five companies reported that tariffs threaten their ability to innovate in areas critical to competitiveness, such as fuel efficiency and sustainability.
It isn’t just big business feeling the pinch. The Budget Lab at Yale University released a report on August 7, 2025, estimating that the 2025 tariffs would raise overall price levels by 1.8% in the short run—the equivalent of a $2,400 hit to the average household’s income this year. The pain is already showing up at the grocery store: wholesale prices for domestic fresh and dry vegetables were 38.9% higher in July 2025 compared to the previous year. Home Depot, the home improvement giant, has reported that homeowners are delaying large projects due to rising prices caused by tariffs, and the company is scrambling to diversify its supply chain to offset the impact.
Trump’s team, however, remains upbeat about the strategy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on August 19, 2025, that the rolling 90-day tariff delays with China were “working pretty well.” He projected tariff revenue to hit $300 billion, adding, “We’re going to bring down the deficit to GDP. We’ll start paying down the debt, and then at that point that can be used as an offset to the American people.”
But not everyone shares this optimism. During a virtual press conference hosted by SciLine, University of California, Davis economist Christopher Meissner described the current tariff regime as “historic.” He explained, “Tariffs are as high as they’ve ever been. They are now about 18%, that’s the average tariff. That’s as high as they were during the infamous rise in the Great Depression in the 1930s with the Smoot Hawley Tariff. They’re about 10 times higher than they were just last year.” Meissner pointed out that such high and unpredictable tariffs make it nearly impossible for businesses to plan major investments, as “nobody knows what to predict in the short run, or even the medium run at this point.”
The negative impacts are already surfacing. Core inflation surged in July 2025, the job market weakened, and previous months’ employment estimates were revised downward. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates that, over the long term, Trump’s tariffs and the retaliatory measures they provoke will reduce GDP by 1%, cost nearly 1 million jobs, and cost the average household $1,500 in 2026—even as the tariffs are expected to generate $2.3 trillion more in government revenue over the next decade.
Ohio’s manufacturing and agriculture sectors are especially vulnerable. Jason Grant, an agricultural economist at Virginia Tech, warned that if countries retaliate against U.S. tariffs with their own, “Our exports are dependent on foreign demand. If that foreign demand retaliates against U.S. products, that’s when Ohio farmers, Indiana farmers, Illinois farmers, all the way across to California—whatever form that retaliation takes, tariff or non-tariff—that’s what trickles back to lower cash to the farmers.”
Vidya Mani, a supply chain expert at the University of Virginia, explained that tariffs disrupt supply chains and drive up inflation. She likened it to “a railroad track that’s moving seamlessly from the West Coast to the East Coast, and then suddenly you put in stops. You add extra checks. The more stops you put in, the more it’s going to create delays.” She added that the erratic nature of Trump’s tariff policy makes it impossible for businesses to plan strategically: “If you have demand seesaw like this, and prices—one day they’re protected and they go up and the next day they’re not and they go down by a magnitude—no industry can survive a planned production based on those fluctuations.”
Despite the administration’s hope that tariffs will revive American manufacturing, economists remain skeptical. Meissner summed it up: “Because of the potential for uncertainty, for backtracking, it’s unlikely companies are going to pour investment into those sectors, and we wouldn’t necessarily be competitive in those sectors. I think the idea that these tariffs are going to bring back or revitalize the economy in the way it was decades ago, I think that’s probably a non-starter.”
The story of Trump’s tariffs is one of unpredictability, unintended consequences, and the age-old tension between public policy and private gain. As Americans grapple with higher prices and businesses navigate a landscape riddled with uncertainty, the coming months will reveal just how deeply these policies will reshape the nation’s economic future.