Maplewood-based 3M has calculated its annual tariff bill: $850 million

A year after spinning off its health care division and hiring a new CEO, 3M is revving up the innovation engine and hitting its stride.

Except now the Maplewood-based manufacturer is facing an $850 million annual tariff bill.

Between President Donald Trump’s 10% import tax on all countries, a hefty 145% tariff on Chinese goods and China’s retaliatory 125% tax on U.S. imports, few companies will escape damage from the global trade war.

3M CEO Bill Brown said Tuesday the Scotch tape-maker is getting creative about ways to mitigate those tariffs.

“I think we’ve got a good game plan,” Brown told analysts on an earnings call. “In general, we’re a little bit better positioned than a lot of our competitors.”

Because of how integrated the global economy has become, the fallout from tariffs is hurting some of the very businesses they’re intended to protect: U.S. manufacturers. 3M has dozens of domestic manufacturing plants, which depend on inputs and machinery from around the world.

The company is also a net exporter from the U.S., with $4.1 billion exported and $1.6 billion imported ever year.

Since the global tariffs went into effect this month, and 3M carries 90 days of inventory, the company expects to take just half of the $850 million tariff hit this year. And that’s before finding cost savings and moving around production.

Chief Financial Officer Anurag Maheshwari said on Tuesday’s call 3M is looking at “cost and productivity initiatives, optimizing production and logistics — including leveraging [its] U.S. footprint — and selective price increases where feasible.”

“We’re controlling what we can,” he said.

Tariffs on and from China will result in the biggest chunk of the $850 million annual tariff impact. Maheshwari estimates $675 million in added costs, even after accounting for the tariff exemptions some products are receiving.

The company expects up to a 5% hit to its 2025 earnings due to the tariffs, or between 20 cents and 40 cents per share.

3M, at least, had a head start on tariff troubles with a 20% boost to profits to start 2025. The first quarter’s haul was $1.1 billion. Sales fell 1%, to $6 billion, through the first three months of the year.

Brown said the company’s new-product goal — 1,000 product launches through the next three years — remains on track. Sales of new products are also trending up so far this year.

“We bottomed out and turned the corner,” Brown said. “The pace of innovation is accelerating at 3M.”

3M shares jumped 7.5% Tuesday morning, clawing back half of the value lost since the beginning of the month when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs.