“There are no tariffs on webcasts,” joked Régis Schultz, chief executive of JD Sports, as he opened the sportswear retailer’s strategy update to the City.
Unfortunately, that was the limit of his insights into the effects of Trumpian economic warfare on a business that likes to point out that its 2,500 state-side stores make it bigger in the US than local icon Footlocker. The boast sounded better before the US whacked 40%-plus tariffs on countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, the manufacturing source of many of the trainers and “athleisure” apparel in the shops.
