One in five Dutch businesses have made adjustments due to trade tensions

A total of 13 percent of Dutch companies have adapted their activities due to global trade tensions and disruptions. Another 8 percent are planning on doing so, according to Statistics Netherlands, based on a survey in March. Businesses are mainly choosing to adapt their country of import or export.

Around 20 percent of the policy changes are about increasing the supplies. An estimated 8 percent is moving production to a different country or, in a smaller number of cases, back to the Netherlands.

Companies in the industrial sector (33 percent) and transportation and storage (30 percent) most often indicated that they were making or planning to make changes. Most companies (47 percent) are not working on strategy changes. Almost a third of the companies asked only have domestic activities.

Since the election of US President Donald Trump at the end of last year, global businesses have feared obstacles to global trade, which also arose earlier this year due to the trade war that Trump started with import duties. Many countries are still negotiating with the United States about the actual fees of these duties.