In today’s revised GDP report is a read from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on how corporate America is holding up amid shifting trade policy. Corporate profits were up by 2% and $65 billion in the second quarter. 

That’s after a first quarter slump. 

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reports corporate profits a little differently than companies themselves. 

“The proper BEA terminology is profits from current production,” said John Blank with Zacks Investment Research. 

This matters because it’s a measure of fundamental business activity. Capital gains and losses from stocks, bonds and other assets, the BEA strips all that out.

“This is actual production in the U.S. economy,” Blank said. “You can actually manage to materially see this.”

Like a car lot making a sale or a construction firm investing in new equipment. 

And in the first quarter, the corporate profits were down. 

“What happened was firms imported a lot of goods from overseas in anticipation for increasing tariffs,” said Ricardo Marto with the St. Louis Fed. 

Marto said that frontloading tipped the scale. Sort of like with overall GDP. But stockpiling slowed down in in the second quarter and companies sold through some of that inventory. 

“And so, we see profits going back up,” said Marto.

At a modest pace relative to recent history, according to Marto. But the rebound is a sign that corporate America is hanging in there. 

“For now, is the operative term,” said Gary Schlossberg with the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “U.S. tariffs have absorbed most of the tariff increases without really damaging margins. Real test will be late this year, early 2026.”

Companies will have to choose whether to keep eating the cost of tariffs or pass more of it on to increasingly price sensitive customers. 

Schlossberg said either could take a bite out of corporate profits.