The former CEO of Sears Canada, Mark Cohen, says corporate America is “terrified” of President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, but CEOs of big-box retailers are too afraid to speak out against it.

“Few in industry are speaking out loud about [this], for fear of retaliation, which is a form of cowardice,” Cohen, who directs the retail studies program at Columbia Business School, told Fortune . “They are frantically trying to figure this out,” he said, describing retailers and manufacturers calling him panicking under the pressure to rewrite forecasts, protect margins and renegotiate with suppliers.

So far, retailers have been buoyed by their efforts in the spring and summer to stockpile and reduce the quality of some of their goods, allowing them to keep prices low. That’s why the

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