Supply chain monitor Fair Supply has launched a tariff calculator to work out what the Trump trade war will cost businesses.
Key Takeaways
- Fair Supply, an Australian startup founded to work out businesses’ environmental, social and governance [ESG] risks, has launched what it claims to be a world-first Supply Chain Tariff Calculator.
- Instead of focusing on point of entry tariffs – recently imposed then partially paused for 90 days by US president Donald Trump – Fair Supply’s tool attempts to trace how costs accumulate through secondary and tertiary suppliers – allowing businesses to see the full embedded cost of their inputs caused by a tariff war.
- The calculator can be updated in real time as fresh tariff rates are announced by different countries.
- According to early modelling by Fair Supply, the combined direct and indirect costs of the new and reciprocal tariffs – now paused by the White House – would have hit the Australian economy to the tune of more than $12 billion.
- Fair Supply has calculated that the worst-affected sectors would be healthcare [$1.2 billion], construction [$1 billion] and defence/security services [$700 million].
Example
The healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors were an example of how the tariffs would affect industries that weren’t directly targeted. “As tariffs of up to 34% take effect on key supplier countries, the sector is projected to face a significant increase in pharmaceutical manufacturing costs,” Fair Supply said in a statement.
“These increases will likely stem from higher prices for imported raw materials, components, and equipment critical to production. For example, basic chemical precursors produced in the US are shipped to China for conversion into APIs [active pharmaceutical ingredients].
“The finished APIs are then exported to countries like Australia for final formulation. As a result of these supply chain vulnerabilities … pharmaceutical companies across Australia may be forced to consider restructuring their supply chains, incurring additional regulatory, logistical, and operational costs.”
Background
Founded in 2019 by human rights lawyer Kimberly Randle with mathematician and supply-chain academic Dr Arne Geschke, the SaaS startup Fair Supply developed its Spotlight product, dubbed “Google for ESG”.
It claims to map over 60 billion global supply chains and has used that knowledge to create the tariff calculator, adding the cumulative tariff impacts across multiple tiers of international trade. “It is the first tool in the world capable of fully capturing the impact of the ongoing trade war,” Geschke said.
CEO Kimberly Randle said it was a natural fit to branch into tariffs from ESG. “Fair Supply has always believed that every ESG issue is ultimately a supply chain issue for business.
“What powers our engine is deep, unparalleled visibility into global supply chains. That same visibility gives us a unique advantage in tackling tariff risks—because supply chain resilience isn’t just a trade issue, it’s fundamental to business sustainability,” Randle said.
Geschke said that the calculator captures the true cost of the tariffs. “When secondary and tertiary suppliers are hit with tariffs, the resulting cost increases ripples through international supply chains- inflating costs, distorting pricing, and eroding global competitiveness,” Geschke said.
The calculator will be updated with each new announcement from different countries as the trade barrier landscape evolves.
“This real-time recalibration ensures businesses always work with up-to-date insights that reflect current global trade dynamics, enabling users to respond proactively to shifting cost pressures and avoid cost blowouts or procurement disruption,” Geschke said.
The Fair Supply Supply Chain Tariff Calculator will be live at 10am, April 10, with the free version accessible to the public. A more comprehensive paid version of the calculator will become part of Fair Supply’s latest product Spotlight, an agentic AI due diligence platform.
