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Americans Are the Ones Paying for Tariffs, Study Finds
- like_any_other 9mo ago[flagged]
- CamperBob2 9mo agoThey're tariffing manufacturing inputs. Almost everything we still make in America now costs us more to produce. Don't anthropomorphize the misguided missiles in the Trump administration. There is no teleology behind the tariffs, only chaos and grift.
- SantalBlush 9mo agoNot to mention, as has been said many times before, there isn't much incentive to build out manufacturing in the US when its trade policy is constantly shifting at the whims of one person. Businesses need stability, and this President delivers the opposite.
- mitthrowaway2 9mo agoMy boneheaded proposal is the opposite of Trump's approach: give the rest of the world coupons to buy made-in-USA products and machinery at a steep discount. Ship stuff to the rest of the world and ask nothing in return. Get the orders rolling in from around the world, pushing up economies of scale. Of course, this will make American consumers much poorer on average, but boost production capacity. Sort of what China does.
- techblueberry 9mo agoWho is “they” in this question?
- mindslight 9mo agoAny such plan requires evicting the fascist grifters first, and rejecting these fake calls of "fiscal responsibility" that have been running interference for the past several decades. Then, proceeds from having the world reserve currency could be spent deliberately (re)building our industry rather than just being dumped into handouts for the rich. But in a way the reelection of the New York conman was the final nail in the coffin assuring that this will never happen. The red tribe found it more appealing to turn their frustration inwards and attack our country rather than working with the blue tribe to constructively address these types of problems. And with the subsequent destruction of most everything that had made us a world leader, it's questionable whether we will even have the world reserve currency for much longer.
- nkmnz 9mo agoWho’s the hostile competitor? Denmark? Germany?
- like_any_other 9mo agoAlways the same trick - pretending not to understand.
- nkmnz 9mo agoLikewise.
- techblueberry 9mo agoThis is such an interesting and important conversation, why are you trolling?
- like_any_other 9mo agoDo you understand that this trick no longer works? When you pretend you don't know about China [1], nobody believes you are being sincere. There are only others pretending along with you. I will not be wasting my words on this charade. Go pretend you have the knowledge of a 5-year-old somewhere else. [1] Though the advice is generic - no country should let their local tech entirely wither, no matter where it gets moved.
- techblueberry 9mo agoAgreed, so then why have we enacted a trade policy that helps China grow their trade surplus 20%? https://www.woodtv.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/chinas-trade-surplus-surges-20-to-a-record-1-2-trillion-even-with-trumps-tariffs/ https://www.woodtv.com/news/nexstar-media-wire/chinas-trade-...
- like_any_other 9mo agoBecause all the smart economists in charge stood around doing nothing while industry vanished, and the only one that actually did something was a moron. If your team of doctors is letting the injured bleed out in a ditch, don't complain when someone actually tries to help, but does it wrong. Also your question has nothing to do with my initial post. It's not even tangential.
- kelseyfrog 9mo agoThere's a guaranteed fix, but no one is going to advocate for it: replace the dollar as the global reserve currency. The replacement of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s with the petrodollar, transformed the US from a creditor nation to a debtor nation, and shifted economic and financial incentives in ways that resulted in deindustrialization followed by trade imbalance. If we want to reindustrialize, it's simple: de-dollarize the global reserve. The downside is that it affects the finance bros and the US's ability to apply economic pressure to achieve political outcomes on the world stage. If you think the benefits afforded in international politics outweighs deindustrialization, thats fine, but you can't have both.
- throw0101d 9mo agohttps://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/americans-are-the-ones-paying-for-tariffs-study-finds-e254ed2e https://archive.is/https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/america... https://archive.is/lvQHh https://archive.is/lvQHh
- ChrisArchitect 9mo ago[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46680212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46680212
- artemonster 9mo agoI am checking conservative echo chambers from time to time and find it ridiculous that they always find a positive spin on all the obvious grifting and destruction that is happening around them. we are witnessing the downfall of an empire with our own eyes and can do absolutely NOTHING
- neon_me 9mo agoBest part is how "west" wants Russians public to revolt against tyranny while we boil like a frogs ... And do absolutely nothing.
- conductr 9mo agoI build homes and so am adjacent to many blue collar Trump fanatics, here's the thing I constantly hear; > My tool for X used to cost $500 or $2000. The $500 was imported and good enough for me. I could never justify spending $2000 on the Made in USA version although it was very well built and I wanted it. Now, with tariffs, the import costs $1800, so it's easy for me to justify spending $2000 on the Made in USA option. Trump got me to buy American and support American manufacturing. Go MAGA! It's strange how if the same economic condition existed due to a Biden (or any liberal presidents term) they surely would have been villainized for eliminating ANY lower cost option, increasing the cost of business (when tools cost more, everything they create costs more), and simply stealing food from people's families (as the $1500 extra he spent would have presumably remained in this contractor's profits in the pre-tariff reality not to long ago). It takes massive mental gymnastics to view this as beneficial and anything other than a direct tax on American consumers. The brain washing rhetoric of conservative media is an extremely powerful weapon.
- asterix_pano 9mo agois there really nothing to do?
- kayamon 9mo ago"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."
- ahallock 9mo agoAre we getting income tax breaks then?
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoOh no no, we still have tax cuts for the wealthy, $800B in debt servicing, and $1T/year in military spending to pay for. The tariffs were a regressive tax to compensate for the tax cuts for the wealthy.
- Ajedi32 9mo agoEven with 90B in tariffs collected this fiscal year (since October) the government still spent 600B more than they collected.[1][2] Tax cuts would be great, but if you cut taxes without cutting spending you're just borrowing that tax cut from future generations. (270B of that 600B hole is interest payments on debt incurred by previous generations doing exactly that to us.) [1] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/government-revenue/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/gover... [2] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
- hypeatei 9mo agoIn two weeks, just like the DOGE checks. Mark your calendar, two weeks.
- throw0101d 9mo ago> In two weeks, just like the DOGE checks. Mark your calendar, two weeks. Is this before or after Infrastructure Week: * https://politicaldictionary.com/words/infrastructure-week/ https://politicaldictionary.com/words/infrastructure-week/
- kelseyfrog 9mo agoNo. It's like punching yourself in the face and then taking Tylenol for the pain until your friends do what you want. It's psychotic, doesn't work, and they're probably not going to want to hang out until you get some help.
- WheatMillington 9mo agoOf course... who did you think would pay?
- betaby 9mo agoBecause Canadian government gives money to some industries to pay for tariffs. It's called Regional Tariff Response Initiative (RTRI).
- MichaelBurjack 9mo agoBased on my (limited) understanding of RTRI, they have very specific items they fund and pretty low overall impact to the trade balance ($1M per org and $1B over 3 years program total across all industries). From [1]: ---------- Productivity improvement: - investing in digitization, automation, or technology to enhance business productivity and competitiveness - reshoring production, research & development (R&D) operations, recruiting highly qualified personnel (HQP) and expertise Market expansion and diversification: - developing and diversifying markets to help businesses find new customers - business support, market development and diversification, and guidance services (e.g., advice for businesses from a sectoral expert organization) Strengthening supply chains and trade resilience: - optimizing supply chain logistics and ensuring compliance with standards to gain market access and/or enhance sales - strengthening domestic supply chains and facilitating internal trade to increase the resilience of businesses and reliability of domestic markets ---------- This $1B program — even if it all went straight to subsidizing tariffs on Canadian imports — would be a pretty small rounding error out of the total $200B raised through tariffs from the article. If anything, RTRI funds are largely about efficiency and pivoting to new markets. While there may be some outcomes that result in producers being able to lower their export costs, they're not "paying for" US tariffs. Edit: formatting. -- 1: https://www.canada.ca/en/prairies-economic-development/services/funding/regional-tariff-response-initiative/information.html https://www.canada.ca/en/prairies-economic-development/servi...
- AngryData 9mo agoBut that still doesn't reduce the cost to US customers, it just means the Canadian businesses gets a subsidy to make up for reduced sales.
- kshri24 9mo agoYou really don't need ANY study to know the obvious thing that tariffs are taxes on imports. It is being paid by Americans from DAY 1. The only difference being American Companies were taking the brunt of it all and it is now obvious that they cannot keep swallowing it and will eventually pass it on to the American consumers. It is crazy that so many in US STILL think tariffs are being paid for by exporting countries. US is sabotaging itself and pushing in the same "New World Order" that the right-wing conspiracy nuts kept warning about but ironically have been instrumental in accelerating it themselves anyways. Or maybe that was the design all along. To not go out in a whimper but with a big bang. If I were the Democrats, I would do nothing and just let the US admin destroy whatever little credibility it has left on the World stage... thereby securing mid-terms and the next Presidential elections.
- hypeatei 9mo ago> It is crazy that so many in US STILL think tariffs are being paid for by exporting countries. They knew it was a lie then, and they know it's one now. A plurality of voters want what's happening currently, they're not crazy, it's just a mix of xenophobia, isolationism, and inbreeding.
- wolvoleo 9mo ago> If I were the Democrats, I would do nothing and just let the US admin destroy whatever little credibility it has left on the World stage... thereby securing mid-terms and the next Presidential elections. Not a great idea. The US will have lost a lot of political goodwill by then. And given up a lot of geopolitical status and influence. The devices will be back in the saddle but have to resort to really unpopular measures to clean up the mess, basically guaranteeing a republican win afterwards. And some credibility and influence will never recover. The rest of the world will remember there can always be another trump. And they will have switched to (and restarted) local industries. Once those are running there's no incentive to look at US ones again. And any geopolitical influence that was lost will already have been filled by other players who will entrench themselves.
- kshri24 9mo ago
- TruffleLabs 9mo agoDuh!
- jurschreuder 9mo agoThe only threat that works against Trump doing destructive things is to say to build a slightly bigger white house for Biden to feature him in a reality show and put him on the front page on a full page and Trump on a the second page at a half page.
- KevinMS 9mo agoSame with corporate taxes, its just targeted a different way.
- josefritzishere 9mo agoduh
- 1attice 9mo agoUnflag this. Tariffs are a tech story.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- chaos0815 9mo agoYou needed a study for that conclusion?
- ryan_lane 9mo agoWhy is this flagged? Why are things critical of this administration usually flagged? Moderation on HN is a joke.
- misnome 9mo agoIt’s not really anything to do with tech though, is it? “This doesn’t belong here” is perfectly valid reaction to stuff covered on a million other sites.
- aaarrm 9mo agoIt doesn't need to be tech. From the Guidelines section of HN: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
- misnome 9mo agoRead your own post? > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics > If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. I shouldn’t be surprised when people flag such things.
- ryan_lane 9mo agoCurrently on the front page, and not flagged: * California is free of drought for the first time in 25 years * Inside the secret world of Japanese snack bars * Danish pension fund divesting US Treasuries * Driver killed and several injured after second train derails near Barcelona * De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? (2025) It's common to have things that are covered on TV news on the front page. It's more common for anything negative about Trump to be flagged, though.
- 9mo ago
- hnburnsy 9mo agoProblems with this study... Short Time Horizon for Data Analysis: The study relies on data from January 2024 to November 2025, covering only about 7-8 months after the April 2025 tariff announcements. This captures primarily short-run effects, where pass-through to import prices is often high (near 100%), but longer-term adjustments could lead to greater absorption by foreign exporters. For instance, studies of the 2018-2019 trade war, such as Amiti, Redding, and Weinstein (NBER Working Paper 26610, 2019), found that initial pass-through was complete but declined over time in sectors like steel (falling to around 50% after a year). The Kiel analysis may overstate long-term incidence on U.S. buyers by not accounting for delayed responses like supply chain reorganization or price negotiations. Incomplete Data Coverage: The dataset from Panjiva includes only ocean-freight shipments (over 25.6 million transactions valued at $4 trillion), excluding air and land imports. This omission could bias results, as air freight often involves higher-value goods with different pricing dynamics, and land imports (e.g., from Mexico or Canada) might respond differently to tariffs. Broader U.S. import data from sources like the Census Bureau show that ocean freight accounts for a significant but not comprehensive share of trade, potentially skewing estimates of overall pass-through. Reliance on Unit Values as Price Proxies: Import prices are measured as unit values (value per kg), which can be confounded by changes in product quality, mix, or shipping costs rather than true price adjustments. The authors acknowledge this as a potential issue and use validations like Indian FOB export data, but critics of similar studies (e.g., in the 2018-2019 trade war analyses by the U.S. International Trade Commission) note that unit values often overestimate pass-through by not distinguishing between price changes and compositional shifts. This could inflate the estimated 96% pass-through rate. Weak Statistical Significance in Key Estimates: The baseline regression coefficient (β = -0.039) indicating 96% pass-through is only statistically significant at the 10% level, which is below conventional thresholds (5% or 1%) in economic research. This suggests the result may not be robust to minor specification changes or data noise, raising questions about the reliability of the claim that exporters absorb less than 4% of the burden. Aggregation Masks Heterogeneity: The study reports an aggregate pass-through estimate but does not break it down sufficiently by product, country, or sector. Research on prior tariffs (e.g., Fajgelbaum et al., NBER Working Paper 25638, 2019) shows significant variation: undifferentiated goods like commodities may see more exporter absorption, while differentiated consumer goods exhibit fuller pass-through. By pooling data, the analysis may overlook these differences, leading to overly generalized conclusions. Focus on Border Prices Without Retail Pass-Through Analysis: The paper examines pass-through at the border (to importers) but extrapolates to consumers bearing "nearly all the cost" without direct evidence on retail prices. Studies like Cavallo et al. (NBER Working Paper 26396, 2019) and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (Working Paper 19-12, 2019) find that while border pass-through is near-complete, retail pass-through is partial (around 50-80%), with retailers absorbing some costs through reduced margins. This gap could mean the study overstates the ultimate burden on end consumers, ignoring supply chain buffers.