ECA Calls Tariffs a “Significant Concern”

April 10, 2025

The Trump administration’s new reciprocal tariffs are cause for “significant concern” to the U.S. meetings and events industry, says the industry’s leading advocacy group.

The U.S. meetings and events industry had been on track to employ 2.63 million Americans and drive $426.1 billion in spending nationwide — but that was before the Trump administration released an executive order to impose new “reciprocal tariffs” on so-called “Liberation Day.” These tariffs apply to more than $1 trillion in products being exported from most countries around the world, U.S. allies and non-allies alike. It is widely anticipated that they could raise prices on everything from cellphones to cellophane, including hiking the already inflated cost of some common meeting and event products such as electronics, staging materials and branded merchandise.

That’s why the Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA) on April 4 came out with a statement saying the coalition of leading professional and industry associations that advocates on behalf of the business and professional events industry, opposes these new tariffs. The tariffs, said ECA in the statement, “will negatively impact our collective ability to drive economic growth, support job creation, empower small businesses and help to solve our most urgent societal challenges.”

ECA added, “These tariffs will increase costs for business and professional event organizers, exhibitors and attendees alike. They also send a signal to international exhibitors and attendees that the U.S. is closed for business. Moreover, these tariffs will particularly harm small businesses, which account for 99% of industry companies and 80% of all exhibitors.”

The advocacy group has said that it will continue to work with its member associations, coalition partners and other key stakeholders in Washington, D.C., to advocate for trade policies that will strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. business and professional events industry going forward and allow us to continue to serve as a growth engine for the U.S. economy. But meeting and event organizers also are encouraged to take action, ECA said, including sharing their concerns with their policymakers through the ECA Advocacy Network’s email action center.

While the tariffs are the latest of the policy moves taken by the Trump administration that could negatively impact the meetings and events industry, it follows on the heels of several other policy changes that already are affecting meetings and events in the U.S. Among them:

A proposed tiered travel ban affecting more than 40 countries that already are causing some speakers, attendees and exhibitors to rethink their decision to attend U.S.-based meetings. While it hasn’t happened yet, if these restrictions expand to encompass H-2B visa holders, it may be hard to find the staff hospitality and event organizers need to set up and cater their events.
Governmental travel and communications bans. The Department of Health and Human Services, the parent organization of the National Institutes of Health, has already imposed an indefinite travel and communications ban, resulting in the cancellations of some government meetings, such as the NIH’s abrupt cancellation of grant review panels, training workshops and advisory council meetings. Government staffers at HHS also have required those with speaking gigs lined up to cancel, unless they are able to gain an approval as an exception through the president’s appointees.

Government meetings of all stripes that touch on the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion or climate change also have been cancelled. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has joined the HHS in disallowing employees from speaking engagements, including on topics including air quality and environmental justice at Loyola Marymount University, according to a report in NCR.

International attendees fear coming to the U.S. for meetings and events. The administration’s passport gender marker ban also make it difficult, both emotionally and logistically, for international LGBTQ+ attendees to come to the U.S. for events such as WorldPride 2025. Even those from countries not included in the expanded travel ban are becoming fearful of their ability to enter the U.S., even with valid visas, as the administration continues to deport people, especially students, who it believes may disagree with its policies. Anecdotally, those who do plan to travel either to or from the U.S. say they have been scrubbing their social media and their portable devices of anything that could flag them as opposing the current administration’s policies.

Many from outside the U.S., particularly Canadians, are angry about the administration’s “America First” rhetoric, including calling their sovereign nation the “51^st state” and their leader as “governor,” as well as the onerous new tariffs on Canadian goods. Among boycotts of U.S. goods, they also are cancelling travel to the U.S., both for leisure and to attend conferences.

To keep up to date on what’s happening with this continually-shifting tariff policy, ECA has established the ECA Tariff Resource Center to educate meeting and event professionals about the latest news impacting the industry.