2025 US tariffs, IT contracts, and bleeding margins

Your IT contracts are bleeding margin—and the 2025 US tariffs haven’t even peaked.

US tariffs aren’t just a trade issue. They’re an innovation issue.

In April 2025, the United States detonated a new trade grenade: 34% tariffs on Chinese imports, sweeping 20–26% duties on tech goods from allies like India, Japan, and the EU, and a blanket 10% tariff on virtually everything else.

What began as a geopolitical flex is now rewiring the guts of global supply chains—and quietly rewriting your IT contracts. If you’re still using the same vendor terms, procurement playbooks, or software licensing models from 2023, you’re already exposed.

Hardware is scarce, software is squeezed—and your contract is where the cracks show

Apple is staring down $33 billion a year in new costs from tariffs. Dell, HP, and Lenovo are haemorrhaging margin as component prices spike. iPhone prices are going up. Data centre builds are slowing.

Even software companies—who aren’t tariffed directly—are under pressure. Why? Because higher hardware and cloud costs mean their margins thin, their customer budgets shrink, and their delivery timelines stall.

And guess what happens next?

They start pulling apart every contract looking for wriggle room: Escalation clauses, force majeure excuses, early termination rights.

If your contract wasn’t built for this moment, it’ll buckle.

What you need to do now

Here’s the playbook we’re giving clients navigating the 2025 tariff shock:

1. Run a rapid resilience review of every critical IT contract: If your supplier’s supplier is in a tariff zone, that pain will get passed on. Make sure your contract protects you—not them.
2. Embed intelligent price adjustment and sourcing flexibility: Don’t settle for vague cost review clauses. Lock in pricing models that flex with tariffs and supply chain availability.
3. Stop pretending force majeure and “change in law” will save you: They won’t—unless they’ve been designed for this exact scenario. We help you draft ones that can actually be used.
4. Add stockpiling, inventory shifting, and rerouting rights: Some firms are flying hardware in on charter planes. Your contract should let you accelerate or delay deliveries without litigation.
5. Rewire your software pricing model: If you’re a SaaS or AI provider, your cloud and GPU costs are likely rising. Get your customer contracts ready now—before you have to explain price hikes retroactively.

If your contract can’t bend, it will break

Let’s be real: You didn’t build your business to play whack-a-mole with procurement lawyers every time a politician makes a speech. You built it to move fast, deliver reliably, and build trust—even when the world throws curveballs.

That’s what contract agility gives you.

Want to know if your contracts can handle the next shock?

Book a 20-minute rapid resilience review with our legal architects. We’ll help you spot the cracks before your CFO does.

Contact us here.

Join the movement

The best companies aren’t hitting pause. They’re doubling down on speed, trust, and smarter legal design.

We work with leaders who don’t wait for permission

At ITLawCo, we help fast-moving companies stay fast—especially when everything else slows down.

We’ve helped:

• Cloud providers renegotiate eight-figure datacentre contracts after tariff hikes broke the pricing model
• SaaS businesses redraft cost-pass-through clauses after GPU imports triggered sudden hosting cost spikes
• Platform builders pivot sourcing strategies and bake tariff escape valves directly into supplier terms

And we’ve done it quickly—because agility isn’t optional when the trade winds shift.

This is the new normal. Let’s make it work for you.