When Donald J. Trump first took his seat in the Oval Office in 2017, book publishing had something of an idea of what to expect. The famously litigious real estate magnate and reality TV star’s exploits had been regular tabloid
fodder in publishing’s hometown of New York City long before he plunged into politics. Now that Trump is returning to the White House, however, publishers have more than a hunch as to what’s coming—they have the whole road map.
While threats to funding for arts and humanities organizations are one big worry, the primary ethical concern for most in the book business is free expression. “The president-elect has a history of using libel suits and other litigation to intimidate authors and publishers from publishing criticism and information he disagrees with,” the Authors Guild wrote in a statement provided to PW, adding that “he has already shown that he intends to continue using the tactic to ‘make life miserable’ for writers who challenge him.”
The first Trump administration regularly threatened or brought baseless lawsuits aimed at shutting down the planned publication of multiple books critical of Trump prior to their publication, including books by former administration staffers Omarosa Manigault-Newman and John Bolton and journalist Michael Wolff. Trump also tried to force Hachette Book Group to disclose the identity of the anonymous former senior White House official who wrote the cautionary tell-all A Warning. Then there were the private suits, over his niece Mary Trump’s book and, post-presidency, Bob Woodward’s The Trump Tapes.
Trump lost or settled all those cases. Still, he threatened to sue Penguin Random House and the New York Times for $10 billion on the eve of the 2024 presidential election, just two months after the former published Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success by two of the latter’s reporters, Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig. Meanwhile, the past few years has seen an ongoing and unprecedented surge in book bans and censorship efforts at public and school libraries that has been pushed by right-wing groups in communities across the nation, increasingly forcing publishers, librarians, educators, booksellers, book business organizations, and authors to take legal actions.
Interim PEN America co-CEO Summer Lopez broke down the free expression threats posed by the forthcoming administration into two categories: “formal and direct threats” and the “broader chilling effect” of “the kind of rhetoric that we’re seeing coming out of Washington and out of political leaders” opposed to any whose speech doesn’t reflect their own worldviews. Publishers should expect both these threats to continue, with the Republican Party emboldened by a so-called red wave in last year’s election that put it in control of all branches of the federal government. But there’s no good reason for the book business to preempt lawsuits through self-censorship, meaning that the best thing for them to do is the thing they do best.
“Let’s not forget that the best thing that we can do as book publishers is to publish books,” said Jonathan Karp, CEO and president of Simon & Schuster, which was a regular target during Trump’s first White House run. “And as citizens, we’ve got to fight and respond at the local level, where our communities are affected and where our voices can most clearly be heard. This is so much bigger than just publishing.”
Katy O’Donnell, senior editor at Haymarket Books, agreed, adding that the most important thing the Chicago-based leftist independent press could do at this moment is “support our authors, because they’re the ones doing the work on the front lines, and thinking about ways to be part of a larger ecosystem of organizations that are fighting back.” While Haymarket, unlike S&S and other Big Five publishers, doesn’t have the margins that would allow it to sign onto major lawsuits, “we are working with librarians and civil liberty orgs and folks fighting prison censorship,” O’Donnell said. “And, of course, whenever there’s a kind of crisis moment and people need to understand something, we give away lots of free books.”
A Potentially Punishing Protectionism
On the purely business side of things, what Trump will actually do about tariffs remains the top concern executives expect to deal with in the early days of the new administration. In the months leading up to his inauguration, Trump threatened to raise tariffs by an additional 10% on all imports from China, and levy 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico, once he reassumed the presidency.
During his first administration, Trump instituted tariffs on a wide range of products, including books, coming from China. Efforts led by various publishing players were successful in exempting Bibles and other religion books and reducing the tariffs on children’s books from 15% to 7.5%; eventually, even that lower rate was suspended. Other books printed in China remained subject to the tariffs, which stayed in place throughout the Biden administration. Trade experts fear that since Biden did not remove the tariffs, it will make it easier for the Trump administration to levy new, higher ones.
Industry executives have been left hoping for clarity on many of Trump’s proposals. Which tariffs will actually be issued, when, and how? Trump has suggested that he may use an executive order to levy them, and on January 14 even proposed the creation of an External Revenue Service to collect tariffs and other forms of revenue that come from foreign sources in a timely manner. (When Trump levied tariffss against China in his first administration, he relied heavily on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, a process that involves a monthslong investigation by the U.S. Trade Representative that would delay any implementation of new tariffs.)
In remarks made in December at a media conference, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray said that the publisher is closely monitoring the situation. Since the first Trump administration and the pandemic, HC has made changes in its global printing and supply chain operation to minimize the effects of the tariffs, but Murray acknowledged that some risks remain. HC is the country’s largest Bible publisher, and the company still relies heavily on Chinese printers for most of its Bibles.
In a conference call with analysts about second-quarter results, Scholastic chairman Peter Warwick also said that changes the company made to its global supply chain will provide a buffer against any new tariffs. “We’re closely monitoring U.S. trade policy, including towards China, Mexico, and Canada,” Warwick said. “We remain confident that our supply chain team can mitigate exposure to potential tariffs just as they navigated the disruptions of the pandemic.” Warwick also touched on a subject that other industry insiders mentioned—that publishers will likely be shielded from any immediate impact from new tariffs since inventory for the first half of 2025 is already in the States.
Association of Canadian Publishers executive director Jack Illingworth noted that in Canada, where many publishers rely on the U.S. market for more than 50% of their sales, “we are watching the situation closely and have been in contact with government partners about the risks and potential remedies.” Tariffs “would have a negative impact on the entire publishing supply chain in both Canada and the U.S.,” he said, adding that many of the multinational publishers that are active in Canada “print a large number of books here but distribute to Canada from the U.S.,” meaning that “they would potentially be impacted twice if retaliatory tariffs were also imposed by Canada.”
One Trump administrative objective in raising tariffs is to make American manufacturers more competitive. In recent years many U.S. publishers have been onshoring production previously done overseas, but they remain worried that printing more books domestically will increase costs. That argument is disputed by U.S. printers, who maintain that they want to work with publishers to help sustain a healthy domestic printing business.
“Thoughtful and strategically focused trade policies can help level the playing field, ensuring that North American producers are not disadvantaged by unfair cost structures in international markets,” the Book Manufacturers Institute wrote in a statement to PW. “We are committed to supporting publishers with cost-effective, domestically sourced solutions that insulate the book industry from global conflicts and disruptions, reinforcing a stable and self-reliant supply chain for the future.”
