Posted on June 11, 2025
As President Donald Trump’s tariff wars heat up, Virginia businesses and the industries that support them are feeling the burn. That’s according to the Virginia Advisory Committee on International Trade that met in Richmond Tuesday.
When the committee last met in April, the word of the day was uncertainty. And according to Riverwind Advisors investment firm president Bob Feeser, not much has changed.
“Most businesses can deal with almost any kind of trade policy regime and tariff, but there has to be some certainty that you can plan around,” he said at the meeting held at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership office.
Feeser said capital investment is taking a hit as many of the parts and machinery that would or could re-shore industry to America are no longer made here. And the large investment required to get those machines here may not be worth it if Trump changes his mind again.
“That’s really dampened capital investment,” Feeser said. “We just can’t make the commitments without understanding the implications on cost.”
John Huddle, CEO with the Global Law Group, was also less optimistic about reshoring under Trump’s plan, or at least his clients were.
“People made long term investments and business decisions based on rules that had been negotiated. And then one executive action and we’re back to where we were,” he said, noting he’d heard “noise” about reshoring from companies in Canada. But that would only happen as an attempt to mitigate long-term tariffs.
“The environment is unpredictable,” Huddle said. “What’s tomorrow going to bring? Does it make sense to make that kind of capital investment?”
In the short term, Michael Coleman, the CEO of CV International and a Youngkin-administration appointee to the Port of Virginia’s Board, said multiple issues are plaguing the state’s major trade center.
“You’re going to see these COVID-types of whipsaw effects on the supply chain,” Coleman warned. “That’s not only capacity, that’s freight rates.”
He also noted messaging from the top, like Trump’s social media posts, wasn’t trickling down to those who need to execute it.
“Even [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] is late coming out cause a tweet goes out and everybody panics and starts making phone calls and we haven’t gotten any guidance from Customs,” Coleman said.
On the agriculture front, reps from both Virginia’s poultry and soybean industry were in the room.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry, Matthew Lohr, himself a soybean farmer, noted the industry was already dragging behind a $5 billion dollar high from two years ago to $3.5 billion last year. China’s withdrawal from U.S. soybean markets has been a problem since the first Trump administration. And now, with prices continuing to drop, he’s hoping for a change in trade winds.
“There’s still some negotiations taking place. It can’t stay at 135% tariff forever,” he said. “Keeping the eye on the big picture, hopefully the tariffs will leave room for negotiations, but in the short term, it’s impacting Virginia and Agriculture nationwide.”
Hobey Bauhan, President of the Virginia Poultry Federation, said trade with China had dropped significantly. But issues with their attentiveness to avian flu and other bird virus outbreaks had already dimmed import and export prospects there.
And while Virginia’s two main trading partners, Mexico and Canada, could make up for some of the nearly $1 billion in trade lost by China’s exit from the market, reciprocal tariffs from allies would not help.
“Hopefully that doesn’t play out,” Bauhan said. “And maybe we could achieve impacts on non-tariff barriers.”
That’s where some saw opportunities instead of obstacles. Those “non-tariff barriers,” like the EU’s ban on U.S. chicken because of how it’s processed, could come down as part of future deals. And that could mean massive new markets for Virginia businesses.
“If those things start to change and go away, it could be monumental for Virginia exporters,” Stephanie Agee, CAO for International Trade at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, told Radio IQ after Tuesday’s meeting.
Meanwhile, Governor Glenn Youngkin, at another event in Richmond Tuesday, downplayed concerns as a kind of “rebalancing.”
“We’re going to see trading relationships reset,” Youngkin told reporters. “And they’re going to move away from places where it’s not a trusted ally like China, and it’ll move to places where we do have trusted allies.”
Youngkin was optimistic about a new trade deal with India. Once a major importer of Virginia coal, trade between the country and the commonwealth dropped nearly 40% over the last year.
