Chief executive Enrique Lores admitted on the earnings call that: “due to additional tariff costs that could not be fully mitigated in the quarter, our non-GAAP operating profit fell short of expectations.”

Revenue was up by a modest 3.3 per cent to $13.22 billion, just nudging past analysts’ $13.14 billion guess. But profit plunged 17 per cent to $700 million compared to the same quarter last year, missing targets and sending investors scrambling.

Even a flurry of supply chain reshuffling didn’t help much.

Lores said: “We recently increased our production coming from Vietnam, Thailand, India, Mexico, and the US. By the end of June, we now expect nearly all of our products sold in North America will be built outside of China.”

The market didn’t seem impressed. While shares clawed back some losses later, HP was still down around eight per cent after hours. The company has already shed 16 per cent this year, thanks to a combo of earnings misses and getting outpaced by rivals.

The broader picture isn't rosy either. Trade war whiplash has been hitting plenty of boardrooms this earnings season. General Motors, Chipotle, and PepsiCo have already trimmed forecasts, while Snap and a gaggle of airlines including Delta and American ditched guidance altogether, blaming tariff uncertainty.

The chaos stems from Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” levies, which slapped a 145 per cent duty on Chinese goods in April. These were later walked back to a still-punishing 30 per cent earlier this month.

Adding to the legal soap opera, a federal court unanimously ruled that Trump didn’t have the authority to ram through his sweeping tariff measures. The US Court of International Trade’s panel of three judges said the tariffs would be vacated.