The threat of tariffs mean businesses must check their exposure and figure out what’s going on in their supply chains, says Tim Sarson

I’ve decided to write an article on tariffs. I don’t do this lightly. Not only is it political, it is dominating the news agenda. So I’ll steer clear of the politics or the macroeconomic rights and wrongs, and instead give you an explainer about what they are, why they’re important and why they’re another reason to know what’s happening in your supply chain.

So what exactly are tariffs? The closest most of us come to them is when we walk through the ’nothing to declare’ channel at an airport. Those officials with their dogs are not just looking for contraband – they are also there to collect customs duty, also known as ‘tariffs’.

Customs duties are a form of tax collected when goods move across a border. They are probably the world’s oldest form of taxation. You find them in texts from ancient Mesopotamia onwards, paid at the gate to a city or village and administered by the original middleman, the customs broker. They’ve been around so long for a reason: they are easy to collect. There is something tangible to tax,........

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