President-elect Donald Trump has promised high, across-the-board tariffs on imports to the United States, with a particularly heavy tax on goods coming from China. An American company, just two days after Trump’s re-election, says it is wasting no time in leaving China.

Steve Madden, a $3 billion shoe company, announced Thursday that it would quickly cut its Chinese production in half to avoid Trump’s tariffs. These plans have been in place for a long time, in anticipation of a Trump victory, according to Steve Madden CEO Edward Rosenfeld.

“We are looking at a potential scenario where we would have to move goods out of China more quickly,” Rosenfeld told Wall Street analysts on Thursday. “And so, as of yesterday morning, we have been putting this plan into action. And you should expect to see the percentage of goods that we source from China start to decline more quickly in the future.

Like all shoe companies, the majority – about two-thirds – of Steve Madden’s business relies on goods imported into the United States, the company said. And among these imports, 70% come from China. So that’s a lot of rework to do.

That’s why Rosenfeld said the company has worked for many years to set up a new network of factories that would allow it to continue doing business without paying the heavy Chinese tariffs that Trump said could exceed 60%. That’s larger than the various tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by Trump during his first term — and which President Joe Biden largely kept in place — which ranged between 30% and 50%.

The goal of tariffs, in theory, is to encourage American manufacturing by making imported products comparatively more expensive than products made in the United States. But here’s the rub: Steve Madden is not relocating his production to the United States. It said it would source products from Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil and some other countries.

In addition to his proposal for sky-high tariffs on China, Trump campaigned on tariffs of 10 to 20 percent on everything entering the United States. Madden may therefore be the first US company to move production out of China due to Trump’s proposals – but it probably won’t be the last. And Americans should not expect all of this production to come back to the United States.

Rosenfeld said Thursday that the company will reduce the percentage of goods it sources from China over the next year to between 40 and 45 percent.

“If we can achieve this – and we think we have the plan to do this – in a year, a little more than a quarter of our business would be subject to possible tariffs on Chinese products,” Rosenfeld says.

“There for a reason”

The retail sector has been cry foul over Trump’s tariffs for some time – clothing and shoe companies in particular. Last week, the National Retail Federation revealed in an analysis that the price of a $50 pair of sneakers would increase to between $59 and $64 under Trump’s tariffs. And Americans would pay up to $24 billion more for clothing each year because of projected increases in costs.

Companies that make clothing are leveraging China’s cheap labor costs and incredibly efficient manufacturing capabilities to quickly deploy workers to make new products for the U.S. market as Fashion senses are evolving. If a shoe company bets poorly on a trend, it can be disastrous for its business, with long-term financial implications.

American labor laws, wage scales – and the fact that America simply doesn’t have as many people as other countries who want to make products – mean that making shoes in the United States doesn’t have everything just doesn’t make business sense for most large companies.

On a call with Wall Street analysts Thursday, Laura Champine of Loop Capital Markets asked Rosenfeld to predict the financial pain that will be inflicted on the company when it abandons China.

“Obviously you were there for a reason,” Champine noted.

Rosenfeld said it’s too early to tell, because the tariffs will have a large and as yet unquantifiable impact on the world.

“I think it’s really difficult to quantify the potential impact here,” Rosenfeld said. “And especially if we consider a new policy with significant tariffs on China, that will have all sorts of far-reaching implications, not just on the supply chain, but on the economy as a whole.”

Trump’s tariffs have been widely condemned by mainstream economists. Because businesses pay the priceimport tariffs and pass them on to consumersTrump’s proposal is akin to a $3 trillion tax hikeaccording to Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right think tank American Action Forum. Trump’s tariffs could cost average American households more than $2,600 a year, says research from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

But Steven Mnuchin, who served as Treasury secretary for all four years of President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday that Trump would be “very careful” not to reignite inflation with tariffs. .

“I think President Trump clearly understands the impact of inflation, and I think he’s going to be very careful,” Mnuchin said of Trump’s tariff plans.

Mnuchin also said that during Trump’s first term, tariff exceptions were granted “on things that were going to impact American businesses.”

“But we did it very strategically,” Mnuchin added.

CNN’s Samantha Delouya contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at CNN.com