In March, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross held up a can of Campbell's Soup to demonstrate how benign the effects would be of steel and aluminum tariffs.
In an earnings, a Campbell official held up the tariffs as a negative factor in the company's future profitability.
Ross made the argument during a CNBC appearance, shortly after the administration had announced it would slap a 25 percent levy on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum. Responding to fears that the duties would be inflationary, Ross said they actually would have little effect on prices, even in a worst-case scenario.
Campbell posted a $393 million first-quarter loss and said it now expects profits to decline by 5 percent to 6 percent this year, worse than earlier projections of between 1 percent and 3 percent.
Chief Financial Officer Anthony DiSilvestro pointed directly to the tariffs as a cause of the company's expected woes going forward. The tariffs did not actually take effect until March 23, near the end of the quarter.
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