FACT: Tariffs are taxes paid by Americans.

THE NUMBERS: U.S. GDP growth –

2025* 1.8%? 2024** 2.8% 2023 2.9% 2022 2.8% 2021 6.1% Average 2010-2024 2.4%

* International Monetary Fund projection, April 2025
** 2021-2024 growth rates from BEA

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Mr. Trump’s April 2 tariff decree, claiming a “national emergency” related to trade balances, imposed (a) a 10% tariff on almost all the coffee, TV sets, automobile parts, shirts, and other things American buy from abroad, and (b) higher rates up to 50% on things from 57 specific trading partners, from Bosnia and Jordan to the European Union.  Following a bond-market rout on April 9, the administration “suspended” these latter rates for 90 days — i.e., today — in the hopes of making “deals”. Monday’s extension of this deadline to August 1st for at least some countries comes with renewed threats, similar though not always identical to those of April 2. (They range from 25% to 40% this time, and cover 14 countries: Kazakhstan, Cambodia, Tunisia, South Africa, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Serbia, Bosnia, etc.).  These may all be struck down in a few weeks, as on July 31 the Court of Appeals will hear arguments on the May 28 lower-court opinion declaring the entire April 2 decree, and therefore anything using it as a base, illegal. If that doesn’t happen, here’s a look at the likely impacts, through the lens of a “deal”  the administration announced (perhaps prematurely) last Thursday:

Big picture first: Last April, the International Monetary Fund cut its U.S. growth estimate by nearly a point, from a 2.7% guess in mid-January to 1.8%. (In dollars, this means about $200 billion less U.S. output, with an original $730 billion in growth falling to $535 billion.) Excluding the -2.2% contraction in the pandemic year 2020 as an anomaly, a 1.8% growth year would be the U.S.’s lowest in 15 years. Or, more recently, it’s a point below the 2022-2024 average.  The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which does the U.S. government’s GDP-estimating, reports a -0.5% contraction in this year’s first quarter, so the IMF seems on track or even a bit optimistic.

Trade “deals” and anti-growth: The administration’s description, posted last Thursday, of a ‘trade deal’ with Vietnam — as of this morning, the only one reported so far among countries targeted in the April 2 decree — helps explain the impact of trade policy on these forecasts:

“Vietnam will pay the United States a 20% tariff on any and all goods sent into our territory, and a 40% tariff on any transshipping. In return, Vietnam will do something that they have never done before, give the United States of America total access to their markets for trade. In other words, they will ‘open their markets to the United States,’ meaning that, we will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at zero tariff.”

The first two sentences aren’t true. “Vietnam” won’t pay anything, and its government made much larger “access” offers to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the 2010s.  This “deal’s” nature and lifespan (even if the Court of Appeals doesn’t scrap it next month) are likewise uncertain, as neither the White House nor the U.S. Trade Representative Office has posted any actual text. But assuming that at least the “20%” (cut back from a 48% April 2 rate) and “40%” figures are correct, and that it isn’t swiftly terminated, here’s the likely impact of “deals” of this sort.

1. Vietnam won’t pay any of this. Americans buy about $130 billion worth of goods from Vietnam each year, mainly consumer goods found in retail stores and groceries: TV sets, laptops, and smartphones; shoes and clothes; furniture; seafood, coffee, canned tropical vegetables, and so on. Imposing a 20% tariff on them does not mean that “Vietnam” as a country, or the Vietnamese government, or Vietnam-based companies, will pay anything.  The ones who pay are the buyers — American retailers, food wholesalers, grocery stores, and so on  — who will write checks to CBP for 20% of their cargoes’ value when furniture and clothes dock at Long Beach, or laptops and coffee arrive on the incoming tide at New Orleans.

2. You will pay. The buyers’ tariff payment, in turn, is included in the bill you pay in the store. This is because these buyers add it to the bills they’ve paid to their Vietnamese supplier and to the shipping company carrying across the Pacific to the United States. The result is the “landed cost” from which they mark up to cover costs — wages, building rent, transport, maintenance, marketing, etc. — and leave a profit margin. If the product doesn’t sell, the store takes the loss; if you buy it, you cover their tariff cost. Using the hypothetical example of a container carrying 1,000 Vietnamese-made wooden chairs valued at $100 each, here’s the arithmetic:

Costs for shipment	Under MFN tariff rate	Under Trump “deal”
Payment to vendor:	$100,000	$100,000
Tariff rate	0%	20%
Tariff payment:	$0	$20,000
Payment to shipping company	$5,000	$5,000
= Total landed cost	$105,000	$125,000
* * *	* * *	* * *
Cost per chair
Import value of chair	$100	$100
Tariff payment per chair	$0	$20
Landed cost per chair	$105	$125
Markup	x 2	x 2
Store sale price	$210	$250
Your bill
Add 5% state sales tax	+5%	+5%
Payment	$220.50	$262.50

Notes: The average import value of a wooden Vietnamese chair last year was $106; the table uses $100 for simplicity.  The $5000 payment to the shipper is based on typical current container rates for a Ho Chi Minh City-to-Los Angeles transit. The markup is purely hypothetical; real-world markups vary by company and product. State sales taxes range from 0% to 7.25%, the 5% is a rough average.

So the administration’s “deal” here is for you to pay $42 more for a chair.  Fundamentally, you’re out $42, the federal government gets $20 in tariff money, and your state government gets $2 in sales tax.  The remaining $20 mostly evaporates as “deadweight loss.” Looking back to the IMF’s forecasts, and scaling this up for U.S. trade in general:

Family price impacts: Spread across the country and all consumer goods, retailers will lose some business as they try to sell higher-priced chairs; buyers such as yourself will pay more; and the country will lose some GDP as more twenties vanish around the country.

Producer impacts: Where most Vietnamese imports are “consumer” goods like the chairs, shoes, and TV sets, Canada’s product mix is heavy on energy, fertilizer, and natural resources. The EU’s tilts toward medicines, cars, chemicals, and industrial inputs.  Retailers, groceries, and restaurants do buy a lot of Canadian and European goods, and with higher tariffs, they’d pay more and charge more. But the impact of tariffs on Canadian and European goods — that’s fully a third of all U.S. goods imports last year — will fall relatively harder on American manufacturers, farmers, hospitals, and building contractors. Facing higher costs, these businesses would lose some competitiveness vis-à-vis imports and especially as exporters. Their higher production costs, meanwhile, would raise inflationary pressure on the “producer price” side and give Federal Reserve economists some extra reason to avoid interest rate cuts.

So: as the IMF’s forecasts and the BEA’s reporting to date both suggest, the likely effect of “deals” like this one will be somewhat lower living standards and a drop in growth rates.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

PPI’s Ed Gresser testifies on tariffs at the Joint Economic Committee, December 2024; PDF version here.

Macro background:

The IMF’s April World Economic Outlook update.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis’ most recent GDP report shows a drop of 0.5% in January-March 2025.

Legal outlook:

The White House’s April 2 tariff decree.

The Court of International Trade’s unanimous May 28 opinion ruling it unconstitutional.

… our look at the C.I.T. decision.

Next up, with oral argument coming July 31, the Court of Appeals brief from the Liberty Justice Center.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

FACT: The U.S. needs 8,000 tons of cobalt a year, and produces 300 tons.

THE NUMBERS: Cobalt reserves known as of 2024, worldwide* –

World	11.00 million tons
Democratic Republic of Congo	6.00 million tons
United States	0.07 million tons
All other countries	5.30 million tons

* U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Surveys 2025

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Last March, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, announced cancellation of 5,200 U.S. Agency for International Development contracts — all but about 1000 of them – claiming that the projects they underwrote “did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.” A PPI guest post today by former USAID economist Kevin Ward looks at one of these projects: an effort to secure American manufacturers’ supply of the “critical mineral” cobalt through a transport project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ward’s story illustrates the work USAID professionals actually do — often technical, designed for shared benefit, sometimes entailing personal risk — and also casts an ironic light on Mr. Rubio’s line about national interests and things that don’t serve, or sometimes even harm, them:

As a point of departure, the experts at the U.S. Geological Survey consider a mineral “critical” when it is (a) “essential to the U.S. economy and national security,” and (b) “ha[s] supply chains that are vulnerable to disruption.” Reliable access for American industry to these minerals is thus widely thought (including by the Trump administration) a “core national interest.” USGS’ official list has 50 of them, from arsenic and antimony to zinc and zirconium, complete with their uses, sources, production levels, trade flows, and availability in the U.S..

Cobalt, a bluish metal selling for $33,335 per ton on the London Metal Exchange today, is No. 10 on the list. Used for centuries for stained glass and deep-blue paints, it meets USGS’s two “critical” tests because it is (a) necessary for the heat- and wear-resistant ferroalloys used for aircraft engines, and the lithium-ion batteries that run smartphones and electric vehicles, and (b) in short supply. American factories need about 8,000 tons of cobalt each year, but the lone U.S. source is the Eagle Mine in Michigan, a mainly copper-and-nickel operation which also produces about 300 tons of cobalt, and is set to close in four years.

So most cobalt must come from somewhere else, and one country in particular has a lot. The Democratic Republic of Congo (in central Africa along the eponymous river, formerly Zaire, home to 84 million people) has 55% of the world’s 11 million tons of cobalt reserves, and produces 75% of the world’s 290,000 tons of annual mining output. But as Ward explains, geopolitical uncertainty makes this source “vulnerable to disruption”:

“Though the DRC is the world’s largest cobalt producer and the second largest copper producer, its mineral supply chains are tightly controlled by China: Chinese companies own the country’s largest mines, its local processing operations, and the railroad that takes its minerals to China for additional processing.”

This is where USAID came in. The contract Ward was working on last winter was clearing the way for American businesses to get access without relying on Chinese middlemen:

“To counteract China, USAID supported the growth of a copper processing industry in the DRC and various projects along the Lobito Corridor: an infrastructure initiative connecting the Copperbelt to Angola’s Port of Lobito, increasing access to the U.S. market. As part of that effort, I kicked off a new USAID activity in January of 2025 to help refurbish the railroad from the DRC’s Copperbelt to the Angolan border — a key segment of the Lobito Corridor.”

In sum, a modest U.S. investment would restore a dilapidated railroad outside Chinese control, running from mining areas in the interior to the coast through Angola. Railcars carrying cobalt along it could sell their cargo to American manufacturers. This was one part of a five-year, $235 million program, with additional financial backing from a third U.S. agency (the Development Finance Corporation) and several dozen USAID technical people on the ground. Not a luxury posting for them, to put it mildly — see the State Department’s “Level 4, Do Not Travel” advisory for civilians and CDC’s health warnings about endemic cholera, meningitis, etc. But the job is part of a mission to serve a widely agreed U.S. interest in reducing, or perhaps eliminating, a risk of supply shock for thousands of large American manufacturers, and is the sort of work USAID people regularly do. Ward laconically explains the project’s current status:

“[W]ork came to an abrupt stop on January 20, 2025.”

So: By canceling this particular project, the administration more or less concedes a Chinese monopoly on the largest supply of a critical mineral. In a few years, even designing such projects may be harder: per its 2026 budgeting, the administration hopes to cut USGS by 40%, so by 2027 the government may lack experts on critical mineral reserves and production. The administration is, though, offering a baffling substitute: Mr. Lutnick’s Commerce Department is proposing “national security” tariffs on critical minerals — that is, taxes of 25% or so on essential things not in sufficient supply at home. In practice, this is a chance for American auto, aircraft, and battery companies to pay $41,670 per ton of cobalt, rather than the $33,335 their overseas competitors pay.

Lots more stories like this among the other 5,199 cancellations, of course. So, in a sense, Mr. Rubio is right to say that some people are going around doing things that “do not serve (or even harm) the core national interests” of the United States. He won’t have to look hard to find them.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Kevin Ward on USAID’s Lobito Corridor railway project.

PPI’s February defense of the American foreign assistance tradition —  ideals, interests, and aid — from Herbert Hoover’s World War I famine relief program through JFK’s launch of USAID to PEPFAR‘s HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and Feed the Future in the 21st century.

New Ukraine Project Director Tamar Jacoby on USAID in Ukraine.

… & Mr. Rubio in March.

Cobalt and critical minerals:

The U.S. Geological Survey explains the “critical minerals” concept and lists the 50 critical minerals.

… and summarizes the cobalt-mining world. The mine outputs in 2024:

World:	290,000 tons
Democratic Republic of Congo	220,000 tons
Indonesia	28,000 tons
Russia	8,700 tons
Canada	4,500 tons
Australia	3,600 tons
United States	300 tons
All other countries	24,700 tons

Cobalt prices at the London Metal Exchange.

… the Eagle Mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is the sole U.S. cobalt producer.

… & the Commerce Department solicits ideas on how American firms can pay more.

The Royal Society of Chemistry’s interactive Periodic Table of the Elements has physical properties and uses for all 118 elements, with cobalt at atomic number 27.

Democratic Republic of Congo:

The Development Finance Corporation announces Lobito Corridor plans, December 2024.

The Democratic Republic of Congo Embassy.

The State Department’s travel advisory has some blunt advice for civilians –  “Do not travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo due to Armed Conflict, Crime, Civil Unrest, Kidnapping, and Terrorism” – and the CDC has guidance on avoiding cholera, meningitis, schistosomiasis, malaria, and other ailments.

The Commerce Department’s guide for U.S. businesses in the DRC is a little more upbeat: “opportunities for firms with a high tolerance for risk and familiarity operating in complex or fragile environments”.

The Labor Department’s International Labor Affairs Bureau has been supporting work to reduce and eliminate child labor in DRC mining, including for cobalt specifically. Perhaps not much longer: as with USGS, the administration hopes to cut ILAB by about 40% this year, and confine its work mostly to issues linked in some way to “trade enforcement”.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

FACT: 65 million of America’s 80 million hourly-wage workers are in “services.”

THE NUMBERS: Americans at work, 2024* –

	2024	Change 2018/2024
Total employed	161.35 million	+5.59 million
Salaried and other non-wage workers	81.00 million	+6.51 million
Hourly-wage workers	80.35 million	-0.92 million
… hourly-wage in health	12.90 million	+0.54 million
… hourly-wage in retail	10.86 million	-0.44 million
… hourly-wage in manufacturing	8.45 million	-0.96 million
… hourly-wage in restaurants	7.26 million	-0.07 million
… hourly-wage in construction	5.62 million	+0.12 million

* Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey.

WHAT THEY MEAN:
The paradox at the core of the Trump administration’s tariff decrees: for American working life to improve, they argue, working-class living standards must fall. (Three TVs are too many for a working family, two dolls per girl should be enough, no price would be too high for locally-made toasters, etc.) Put more sympathetically, the administration’s claim is that while tariffs raise prices for families, they will offset this by shifting workers out of their current jobs into factories.

This may or may not be what workers actually want — as PPI President Will Marshall noted last week, polling suggests workers look more to tech industries than factories for next-generation jobs. Either way, seven years of experience with Mr. Trump’s first-term tariffs (imposed from early 2018 to late 2019), and several months’ experience with this spring’s larger decrees, provide some evidence as to whether tariffs actually do this.  Two definitions, then the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Working Americans: According to the BLS, 161.4 million Americans were employed last year.  Half of them, 80.35 million, earned their income in hourly wages. (As opposed to annual salaries, executive profit-sharing arrangements, investments, professional fees, etc..)  About 80% of hourly-wage Americans — 65 million of the 80.35 million— work in “services” jobs: waiting tables, stocking grocery shelves, replacing brake-pads, trimming hair, cleaning halls, and running hospital admissions desks. The other 20%, 15.3 million people, are in “industrial” or  “goods-producing” work in factories, farms, construction sites, mines, and logging and fishing jobs. Here’s a rundown with some more detail:

All employed Americans, 2024 161.35 million Salaried and other non-wage workers 81.00 million Hourly-wage workers 80.35 million … in health 12.90 million … in retail 10.86 million … in manufacturing   8.45 million … in restaurants & other food services   7.26 million … in construction   5.62 million … in “other   services”*   3.15 million … in education   1.94 million … in agriculture, forestry, & fisheries   0.86 million … in accommodation   0.84 million … in maid/domestic work   0.47 million … in mining   0.32 million All other 27.68 million

* “Other services” is a miscellaneous BLS category including personal care work such as hair salons and beauty parlors, repair shops, dry-cleaning and laundry, funeral homes, non-profits, and others.

Tariffs: Tariffs are taxes on purchases of goods (whether consumer products, raw materials, or industrial inputs) from a foreign supplier.  Their effects on goods-producing industries and their employees are complex: they give some manufacturers, mining companies, and farmers “protection” from foreign competition, harm others by raising production costs and diminishing exports, and give many a confusing mix of both things. But for workers in the services industries — again, seven eight hourly-wage workers in every eight — tariffs just mean higher prices.

If the administration is right, new opportunities in factory jobs might offset some of their losses. But since there are so many more workers in services than goods production, it would take lots of job-shifting for working America to gain on net. And in fact we aren’t seeing any such job shifting at all — since 2018, hourly-wage manufacturing employment has been at best flat and has more likely shrunk.  Three perspectives from the BLS, on total employment, job openings, and hourly-wage jobs:

(a) Manufacturing employment been flat since 2018, and down 88,000 this year. BLS’ monthly “Employment Situation” reports found about 12.7 million manufacturing workers in 2018. This was about 1.2 million above the 11.5 million jobs at the financial-crisis low in early 2010, reflecting slow but steady growth during and just after the Obama administration. In 2024, they found 12.8 million manufacturing jobs, suggesting that job creation had slowed. The most recent report, for May 2025, is once again at 12.7 million, down 88,000 over the past year with losses concentrated in metal-using industries such as farm equipment, auto parts, and machinery.

(b) Fewer open manufacturing jobs: A second BLS survey, “Job Openings and Labor Turnover”, reported about 500,000 open factory jobs at any given time in 2023 and 2024.  The precise figure for January 2025, just before Mr. Trump’s first 2025 tariff decree, was 513,000 open jobs.  Since then, job openings have contracted each month, to 381,000 in May. Except for three anomalous pandemic months in early 2020, this is the smallest number of open jobs in eight years.

(c) Fewer hourly-wage manufacturing jobs, but more salaried manufacturing jobs. Within manufacturing, meanwhile, companies appear to be hiring more very high-skill employees and fewer line-type workers.  BLS’ annual “Current Population Survey” (which counts differently and gets somewhat larger numbers) reports a net loss of 700,000 manufacturing jobs from 2018 to 2024, from 15.7 million to 15.0 million.  Within this overall total, hourly-wage work has fallen sharply — down nearly a million, from 9.41 million to 8.45 million jobs — but salaried and other non-wage employment has grown by nearly 300,000. This suggests structural change, with factories relying relatively less on human labor, and relatively more on computers, robots, and human experts such as engineers and software professionals.

So: Lots of factors affect employment, and disentangling the effects of the post-2018 tariffs from those of business cycle fluctuations, technological change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and other things isn’t easy. But the last decade’s experience gives little credence to administration arguments that higher tariffs mean more manufacturing work. Calling the claim “fool’s gold,” Marshall has a different approach, amplified last week by an in-depth paper from PPI’s Deanna Ross and Bruno Manno on apprenticeships and skill development. That is, recognize the premium businesses of all kinds are placing on expertise, understand that college degrees shouldn’t always be needed for these jobs, and help non-college workers qualify for the higher-skill jobs (in any industry) where most hiring seems to be going on:

“[A] new national commitment to guaranteeing ‘high skills for all.’ Non-college Americans, a majority of the electorate, need a more robust alternative to college: A post-secondary system of work-study opportunities that enable young people to get in-demand skills, credentials, and work experience quickly and affordably.”

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

FACT: One U.S. measles death from 2000 to 2024; three so far this year.

THE NUMBERS: Measles cases in the United States –

 

Jan.-June 2025	1,197
2024	285
2023	59
Average 2000-2024	178
2000	86
1990	27,786
1970	47,351
1960	441,703

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Measles is an exceptionally “transmissible” disease — one infected person will typically pass it to 12-18 more — and survivors often suffer long-term immune system damage and a heightened risk of early dementia. In the 1950s, American health statistics typically showed about half a million cases and 500 deaths a year. The 1964 introduction of measles vaccines produced by Merck and Pfizer cut this by 90% — to 47,351 — by 1970, and to an average below 200 per year since 2000.  That can make people complacent — and then near-vanished diseases can return.  This year’s measles epidemic, centered in a low-vaccination Texas county, has already hospitalized 112 people and killed three. As long-time anti-vaccination crank Robert F. Kennedy Jr. purges immunization experts at the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Trump administration asks Congress to cancel U.S. contributions to GAVI (the international consortium providing 70 million no-cost vaccinations in low-income countries annually), some background on vaccines, malgovernance, and the possible future:

Vaccines are classes of medicine offering advance protection from 25 contagious diseases — smallpox, typhoid, hepatitis A and hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria, polio, measles, rabies, cholera, and encephalitis — borne by viruses or bacteria. The mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 is the most recent.  Vaccines come into use in the United States after a scientific evaluation, formal government approval, and finally recommendations for use by medical professionals. Both here and worldwide, they have made life safer, longer, and better. For example:

Poliomyelitis: In the 1940s and 1950s, before the introduction of the Salk vaccine, America’s annual polio counts often topped 57,000 cases and 3,000 deaths. Since 1993, we have had one case, an unvaccinated man returning from abroad. Overseas, though some “wild” strains remain endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, universal vaccination programs run by the World Health Organization, USAID, the CDC, charities, and national health ministries have cut case levels by 99.99%. The numbers:

2024             96 polio cases
2020               6 polio cases
2010           650 polio cases
2000        3,500 polio cases
1988    350,000 polio cases

Neo-natal tetanus data are similar: U.S. case rates have dropped from about 500 a year in the 1950s to 30 or so since 2000. Abroad, campaigns to vaccinate pregnant women and guarantee antiseptic standards in poor-country maternity clinics have cut deaths by about 99%, from nearly a million to fewer than 10,000 annually.

2021        7,719 tetanus deaths
2018      25,000 tetanus deaths
2000    309,000 tetanus deaths
1988    787,000 tetanus deaths

To place these specific cases in wider perspective, worldwide vaccination campaigns such as those run by GAVI – which spends a modest $1.7 billion a year, with America providing $300 million of it, to vaccinate 70 million children in 59 developing countries — have joined with the invention of new treatments and improving primary care to cut world under-five mortality rates by half since 2000 and nearly three-quarters in a generation.

2023	37 deaths per 1000 children
2020	39 deaths per 1000 children
2010	53 deaths per 1000 children
2000	77 deaths per 1000 children
1990	94 deaths per 1000 children
1980	132 deaths per 1000 children

World Health Organization for 1990-2023; World Bank World Development Indicators for 1980.

In sum, vaccine work — by scientists in government and private-sector labs, by businesses inventing and producing medicines, by charities and international organizations, by nurses and doctors, and by clinics and hospitals — has vastly reduced disease case counts, saved many lives, and given young children better chances in life. The achievement may have been so impressive, in fact, as to encourage a dangerous complacency.

This year’s measles outbreak is a vivid example.  The Centers for Disease Control notes that since 2020, America’s rate of “MMR” vaccination (the “measles, mumps, and rubella” combined shot) has fallen from 93.9% to 91.3% — that is, below the level thought necessary for the “herd immunity” which helps protect immune-suppressed people. Gaines County in Texas, the center of this year’s measles outbreak, has an especially low 83.7% rate. CDC’s count shows that within a few months, it has already infected 1197 people (including 347 children under 5, and 446 older children and teenagers), and will likely be the largest outbreak in three decades. The three people who died of it were all unvaccinated.

After decades of safety, then, Americans may be unwisely discounting disease risk and giving cranks and self-taught “contrarians” audiences they don’t deserve. The same may be true internationally. Worldwide measles deaths, having dropped by 92% from 1980 to 2020, have recently risen as global vaccination rates have slipped from 86% of children in 2020 to 83% in 2023.

2023	107,500 deaths
2020	69,400 deaths
2010	203,000 deaths
2000	525,000 deaths
1980	810,000 deaths

Which brings us back to the Trump administration, this month’s ominous events at HHS, and Congress’ debate over health-aid “rescissions” this week.

Mr. Kennedy’s tragi-comic launch event — a “report” on children’s health apparently compiled by an AI program, stocked with invented quotes and cites to non-existent studies — has been followed by steadily escalating attempts to erode vaccination policy at home. Since May, Mr. Kennedy has canceled support for the development of second-generation mRNA vaccines and bypassed CDC professionals to remove scientific recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination updates; and, two weeks ago, fired the 17 members of the CDC’s voluntary expert advisory group, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a few weeks before their regular June meeting. The extraordinary op-ed (subs. req.) he used to announce this justifies the decision with (a) fact-free innuendo about “conflicts of interest” among the current ACIP members, without any specific claim to back it up, and (b) an open admission that the administration sees ACIP positions less as sources of impartial analysis than as patronage. (“[W]ithout removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028”.) The American Medical Association’s comment:

“For generations, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has been a trusted national source of science-and data-driven advice and guidance on the use of vaccines to prevent and control disease. Physicians, parents, community leaders and public health officials rely on them for clinical guidance, public health information, and knowledge. Today’s action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives. With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses.”

The administration is matching this malgovernance abroad. Their “rescissions” bill cancels the entire U.S. contribution to GAVI, along with hundreds of millions of dollars meant for child and maternal health, HIV/AIDS, and other public health programs. (Sample justification, direct quote: “programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health.’”) If the Senate approves it, the U.S.’ commitment to vaccination abroad will shrivel to pretty much nothing.

Both at home and abroad, then, public complacency has grown and government policy deteriorated. If the approach of the administration’s first five months persists, the next three years may be somber: an era in which long-vanished diseases return in force to America, children’s health erodes here and abroad, and life grows more dangerous. Congress, we hope, is aware that the right approach is diametrically opposite. Again, vaccines have made life longer, safer and better. We need more of them, not less.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

FACT: U.S. earnings from international student tuition above those for gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, and gems.

THE NUMBERS: Export revenue, 2024 –

Total	$3,191.6 billion
Airplanes and parts	$123.3 billion
Natural gas Automobiles, trucks, & tractors	$62.0 billion $80.3 billion
Student tuition	$50.2 billion
Gold, silver, diamonds, gems, platinum	$48.6 billion
Soybeans	$24.6 billion

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Department of Homeland Security head and former South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem presents a strange view of higher education, and of international students in the United States, as she tries to stop Harvard University from hosting them:

“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments.” 

Back home, according to the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, South Dakota’s universities have 2,150 international students this year, with the largest numbers from India and Nepal.  The University of South Dakota/Vermillion is home to 820, the School of Mines 149, South Dakota State 826, and so on. Like Harvard’s international enrollees, they don’t really “pad the endowments” — that’s more an investment management job — but help provide operating revenue. Most pay full tuition (USD’s charges for international undergrads total $24,587 a year, grad students a slightly higher $25,127), which helps finance staff expenses, maintenance, and scholarships for low-income locals.

The 1.13 million international students in the U.S. this year are presumably watching Ms. Noem’s efforts with alarm.  For now, they haven’t succeeded, as the courts have blocked her attempts to end Harvard’s international student program. She and her State Department colleague Mr. Rubio, though, are not only going after Harvard but raising basic questions about the future of international education in America, as they “pause” visa interviews for aspiring students and cancel some existing visas without notice. With this in mind, some background on international students and their place in American economic and intellectual life:

Basics: According to the Institute for International Education, 210 countries and territories have students in the United States.  A review of them all would be pretty dull (see below for representative examples), but it’s easy to list the four countries with “zero” students here: Nauru, North Korea, Sao Tome e Principe, and the Vatican. By country, India’s 331,000 and China’s 277,000 combine for half the total, and Asia’s 805,000 account for two-thirds. Other regional totals include 57,000 from sub-Saharan Africa, 91,000 from Europe, 74,000 from Latin America and 11,000 from the Caribbean; 1,700 Pacific Islanders and 6,000 from Australia and New Zealand; and 52,000 from the Middle East. By school, the largest international enrollments are NYU’s 27,247, Northeastern’s 21,023, Columbia’s 20,231, and Arizona State’s 18,430. Other samples around the country include 11,800 international students at UM/Ann Arbor, 8,150 at Georgia Tech, 1,300 at the University of Alabama, 220 at the University of Montana, and 4,500 at Florida International.

By academic level, about three-quarters of the international students are graduate students and post-grads in “Optional Practical Training.” (“OPT” is mainly postgrad fellowships or temporary work authorized under student visas.) The breakout looks like this:

502,291 grad students
342,875 undergrads
242,782 “Optional Practical Training”
38,742 non-degree students (for example in English-language classes)

To put these figures in perspective, American colleges and universities enroll about 3.2 million grad students and 15.1 million undergraduates. So international students are a very large part of grad-school life, and a significant but not huge part of the U.S.’ undergraduate student body.  As a very topical example, Harvard’s high international shares are in its graduate schools: 47% at the Kennedy School of Government, 34% at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 18% at the med school, and 53% — the highest share — at the Graduate School of Design.  In “Harvard College”, the undergraduate school, 850 international undergrads make up 12% of the 7,110 enrollees— above the national average, but not overwhelming and fairly typical of elite private universities; see also Johns Hopkins’ 7%, Stanford’s 9%, Northwestern’s 10%, Duke’s 12%, and Caltech’s to 14%. Undergraduate shares at state universities like USD are usually in the 3%-5% range, and community college rates are lower.

As Ms. Noem and her colleagues ponder the future of this part of American academic life — really neither a “privilege” nor a “right”, but rather an example of autonomous civil society — a few things for them to consider:

Trade and income today:  In the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ jargon, international student tuition is a form of trade called “education-related travel services”, and brings in a lot of money each year. In 2023 — the most recent year for which BEA has done an estimate — U.S. “exports” of this service totaled $50.2 billion. This is a bit less than the $80 billion in U.S. exports of cars and trucks, twice the $25 billion in American soybean exports, and about as much as we earned from gems and precious metals. Or, with the Trump administration’s trade balance fixation in mind, education is a large U.S. ‘surplus’ category: the $50.2 billion in exports are nearly five times the $11.2 billion Americans paid out as ‘imports’ to support U.S. students abroad.

Growth and innovation tomorrow: Further ahead, many international students go home with their degrees. Some stay on to work in the United States, often in valuable roles.  Per the National Science Foundation, 58% of computer science PhDs working in the United States, 56% of all engineering PhDs, and 24% of all science and tech workers in general, were born abroad. So if the administration wants —for example — Americans to assemble smartphones and design ships here, it would be odd and perverse for them to be pushing out a lot of the future phone designers and shipyard engineers.

And the intangibles: Current money and next-generation tech labor supply are important. So are some less measurable things. As IIE’s tables show, places like Vermillion and Cambridge are training a large portion of Asia’s next-generation political, intellectual, and business elite, and significant chunks of their peers in Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. The practical meaning of this won’t be clear for a decade or more, but it’s probably something good. Nor can it be bad for the international students’ American roommates and lab partners to gain some firsthand views of the world outside, and some unfamiliar perspectives on the United States itself. And more generally, the very large role of American universities in worldwide education and intellectual life is (or at least ought to be) a point of pride.

So: With Harvard’s case against DHS set for a hearing next Monday, Ms. Noem and her associates might usefully get some perspective on the role international students play in America’s economy, intellectual life, and long-term global influence.  One easy option would be to take an hour to call home and check in with USD.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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FACT: “Congress shall have the power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.”

THE NUMBERS: Court of International Trade ruling in “V.O.S. Selections vs. Trump” –

Strike down Trump administration “IEEPA” tariff decrees:	3
Sustain Trump administration “IEEPA” tariff decrees:	0

WHAT THEY MEAN:

The Court of International Trade is busy, but usually with pretty specialized stuff. Its 66 opinions this year mostly cover things like application of antidumping penalties to steel products and countervailing duties to catfish, customs broker licensing, and airline ticketing fees. It’s rare for one to address something basic enough to elicit quotes from the Constitution on tax authority, and from the Federalist Papers on “the ‘separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government’ that is ‘essential to the preservation of liberty.’” V.O.S. Selections v. Trump — the one that struck down the Trump administration’s two “International Emergency Economic Powers Act” tariff Executive Orders last Wednesday — is one of that kind. Background on it, and then a thought on the responsibility of Congress:

The case’s core issue is one we raised this past January, in our “Four Principles for Response to Tariffs and Economic Isolationism” post anticipating the Trump administration’s tariff binge. This is Congress’ Constitutional authority over tariffs and other taxes, and the systemic risk unlimited Presidential power to create tariffs would pose:

“The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, gives Congress unambiguous authority over “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises,” and for good reason. No single individual, president or not, should have the power to create his or her own tax system out of nothing. That, at minimum, risks impulsive and ill-considered decisions. Even more seriously, it creates a standing temptation for all future presidents to use tariffs to reward personal friends and supporters, and likewise to punish critics, business rivals, and disaffected states.”

Our concern quickly became reality, as Mr. Trump attempted to use three elderly laws to bypass Congress and create a new tariff system by decree. V.O.S. Selections addresses one of these laws: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — “IEEPA” for short — which dates to 1976. It doesn’t mention tariffs specifically, but gives presidents broad authority to act quickly in emergencies such as the outbreaks of wars or natural disasters.  (The other two laws, not covered in this case, are “Section 232” from 1962, allowing presidents to “adjust” imports to meet national security needs, and “Section 301,” 1974, authorizing threats or imposition of tariffs as a negotiating tool for administrations trying to reduce overseas trade barriers.) These laws share two unusual features: first, presidents don’t need Congressional approval to use them; and second, the policies they choose (tariff or otherwise) can stay on indefinitely. The temptation to rule by decree is thus latent in each, though no earlier president had wanted to try it.

The tariffs at issue in V.O.S. Selections come from two “IEEPA” decrees. The first, spanning three Executive Orders on February 1, declared an emergency over fentanyl and migration and used it to impose tariffs of 25% on Canadian and Mexican products, and 10% on Chinese-made goods.  The second, on April 2, claimed that the U.S. trade balance is a national emergency, and used it to create a “global” tariff of 10% and a battery of “reciprocal” tariffs ranging from 11% to 50% on 56 separate countries and the 27-member European Union.

In practical terms, the tariffs mean massive new costs for hundreds of millions of Americans and millions of businesses. The small New York wine seller whose name is on the case (V.O.S. Selections, on 8th Avenue), for example, buys wine from vintners in the United States and 13 other countries. The permanent “MFN” tariff system imposes a tariff of 6.3 cents per liter for its Argentine, Lebanese, French, Italian, Greek, Croatian, Hungarian, and Austrian wines, and no tariff on wine from FTA partners Morocco and Mexico. The IEEPA decrees hiked this to 10% for the Moroccan and Lebanese vintages, 25% for the Mexican, and threats of 20% and then 50% for the European varieties.

The question V.O.S. and the four other firms in the case — a women’s bicycle shop, a pipe-maker, a designer of educational electronics kits, and a fishing tackle store — pose (via advocates in the Liberty Justice Center) addresses the decrees’ foundation: can a president, by declaring an “emergency,” take Congress’ Constitutional power to set rates for “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises” for himself? The Court concluded that he can’t.

Its opinion in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump and the parallel State of Oregon v. Trump (filed by the Attorneys General for Oregon and 11 other states*), cites the Constitution for authority over tariffs, and Federalist Papers 48 and 51 for the breach in the ‘separation of powers’ an unlimited presidential tariff power would create. Their unanimous conclusion:

“The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (“IEEPA”) delegates these powers to the President in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world. The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.”

The administration has appealed, and the Supreme Court will likely get the final word. But for now, the C.I.T. opinion tosses out all the IEEPA tariffs: the 10% global tariff, the threats of 50% tariffs on things from the European Union and Lesotho (and 46% on Vietnamese goods, 36% on Thai goods, 47% on Madagascar’s vanilla and clothing, 28% on Tunisian dates and jewelry, etc.), the 25% on Canadian and Mexican-made goods and the 10% on Chinese-made products.  The real-world impact of this is quite large: if upheld it will save American families and businesses — small firms like those in the case, farms, building contractors, retail shops, restaurants, hospitals, and manufacturers — hundreds of billions of dollars. The effect on American governance is greater: if the opinion stands, it will reaffirm Constitutional limits on unchecked and arbitrary presidential power, and bar presidents from nullifying Congressional tax authority through a law designed for quite different purposes.

Looking ahead: Assuming the C.I.T.’s opinion does stand, the IEEPA route for presidents hoping to bypass Congress and the Constitution will be closed. It isn’t the only such route, though, and the opinion leaves work for Congress and others hoping to avert further attempts to rule by decree.  It doesn’t affect, for example, the “Section 232” 25% tariff on cars and auto parts, nor the drastically oscillating “232” steel and aluminum tariffs (50%, at least this week), nor the “301” law used first to impose tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018 for negotiating purposes but more recently to convert them to long-term “industrial policy.” The 232 and 301 laws have more procedural checkpoints and requirements than IEEPA and take longer to use, but share a core weakness: since neither requires Congressional affirmation of any new tariffs, presidents can use them to create their own tariff systems.

Whatever one’s view of the merits of tariffs in trade policy or as taxation, this spring’s experience makes such a situation Constitutionally untenable.  Congress should not simply rely on courts to defend its authority.  It has the power to do so itself, and — as Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Linda Sanchez along with House Ways and Means Democrats propose — should use it now.

* Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

FACT: Denmark is a four-generation ally and a good neighbor.

THE NUMBERS:

Denmark NATO membership:	1949-present
Danish soldiers killed in action, Iraq and Afghanistan 2002-2020:	50

WHAT THEY MEAN:

When Americans asked for help, they came. Ten years ago, Marine Gen. Daniel Yoo expresses gratitude for the U.S. Armed Forces as Danish allies rotate out of Helmand:

“I want to thank you for your steadfast partnership. We are grateful for all of your support. Your soldiers should be proud of their multiple deployments here and accomplishments, and for distinguishing themselves with valor on the modern battlefields of Afghanistan. Your country should take pride in your professionalism and commitment.”

A founding North Atlantic Treaty signatory in 1949, Denmark has been a NATO member ever since. The 21,000 Danes who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, including in high-risk provinces Helmand and Anbar, served as allies responding to the Bush administration’s call for assistance under Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. Fifty never returned, 43 of them killed in Afghanistan and 7 in Iraq.

If we were to call again, what might they say?

This year, the Danes have been the target of a bizarre pressure campaign by the Trump administration, which says it wants to “acquire” Greenland. (Which, see below, is a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark, not a possession.) To justify this the administration has raised some questions of security and critical-mineral policy, which aren’t trivial but also (a) aren’t new and (b) are now, and always have been, addressed perfectly well through international law, alliance management, and standard diplomacy. We noted last January that the opening of this campaign, along with similar decisions to pick fights with Canada and Panama, was among the most disturbing events of the transition period. Four months later our view is the same: unwarranted, lacking public support (whether in the U.S., Denmark, or Greenland), and destructive to American and Atlantic security. Some background, and then our advice for the administration:

Greenland is a close American neighbor: Nuuk, the capital, is 1300 miles from Maine and a four-hour direct flight from New York.  Its 56,000 people live on 2.16 million square miles of land — a gigantic space about three times the size of Texas, though 80% of it lies under a mile-high ice sheet. Politically under the Danish Crown since 1397, and a part of the Kingdom of Denmark since 1814, Greenland is a self-governing country whose local government runs fiscal matters, schools, economic policy, and domestic affairs including control over mining and natural resources. Since 2009 it has had a “right of self-determination” extending in theory to independence. (Puerto Rico may be the closest U.S. analogue, though an imperfect one.) Greenlanders — mostly Inuit by ethnicity; the official language is Greenlandic — have been pondering the options, without any great urgency, for several decades.

Greenland participates in NATO via the Danish Armed Forces, and has an important alliance role through the U.S. military space facility at Pituffik (which, to pin down some security detail, works under the direction of the Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia.) Its place in the world economy is legally complex — though Denmark is an EU member Greenland is not, having opted out of the EU for fishery policy reasons in 1979. Its economy mostly rests on tourism and about $1 billion worth of annual halibut, cod, Arctic crab, and cold-water shrimp exports to European, Chinese, and other Asian buyers.*

The independence option, though not likely to materialize in the near term, does raise some questions — principally for Danes and Greenlanders, but also for Greenland’s near neighbors in Iceland, Canada, and the United States.

With respect to security policy: Arctic security does raise important questions, in particular given Russia’s attack on Ukraine and threats against its northern neighbors. These include naval passage, the future of the Pituffik base (not a facility Greenlanders are interested in scaling back; to the contrary, it’s widely supported and both Denmark and Greenland are spending more on security these days) and commercial shipping lanes as Arctic ice retreats.  As in the past, they are perfectly manageable through normal alliance relationships, diplomacy, and defense and intelligence coordination.

With respect to mining and resources: Though Greenland’s largest resource is fresh water (the ice sheet holds about 2.9 million cubic meters of water, ten times as much water as the rest of the world’s surface lakes, rivers, glaciers, etc. combined), it also has lots of rocks and would be happy to sell some of them to Americans. The U.S. Geological Survey cautiously estimates 1.5 million tons of rare earth reserves (their rare-earth estimate for the U.S. itself is 1.9 million tons) along with gem mining, and more generally Greenland has at least some of 39 of the USGS’ 50 designated “critical minerals.”

The resource endowment naturally draws interest from mining businesses worldwide, but as with the security issues, that doesn’t at all mean a crisis. To the contrary, Greenland’s government has been hoping for a while that American mining firms would show more interest than they’re now doing: this year, they count 23 British and 23 Canadian mining companies operating in Greenland, as against only one American. Here’s the relevant Minister, Naaja Nathanielsen, pitching Americans for more business last January:

“Greenland has high hopes of signing a new agreement with the United States as soon as possible. We are searching for ways to increase investments in our mining sector. …  At the moment, companies in Canada and Britain own the most mining licenses in Greenland. They each hold 23 licenses. The United States holds just one. I am sure this picture can change.”

In sum, without any obvious rationale, the Trump administration has been berating Denmark in the press, insisting that the U.S. has some sort of need to acquire and administer Greenland, sending J.D. Vance to walk around in the snow looking for supporters of the idea that Greenland should join the United States (he couldn’t find one), and shifting U.S. intelligence community professionals from the useful work one hopes they’re now doing to an embarrassing, Inspector Clouseau-like mission of finding the acquisition-supporters Mr. Vance couldn’t. This has accomplished nothing useful and done much harm. PPI’s National Security Director Peter Juul sums up the consequences:

“Trump’s alienation of America’s oldest and closest allies leaves the United States less safe in the world — and raises the risk of conflict in Europe and the Pacific by sowing doubts about America’s commitments to its allies and their security.”

Now to the advice, which starts with three pretty obvious points:

• There is no “Greenland problem.” The U.S., Denmark, the Greenland government, and NATO can handle any “issues” related to Greenland policy per se, or to Arctic security more generally, perfectly well and have done so for decades.
• Both the Danish government and Greenland’s elected local government have said repeatedly (including during the first Trump term) that Greenland’s sovereignty isn’t up for discussion.
• Helmand Province in 2014 wasn’t long ago. Mistreating a four-generation ally and good neighbor, which in the very recent past has made considerable sacrifices in a shared cause, reflects poorly on the United States and erodes America’s reputation as an honorable partner.

And then the bright spot: The world is full of unpleasant choices among lesser evils, complex long-running challenges with no simple solutions, etc., etc. This isn’t one of those things. To the extent any problem exists, it is quite new and the Trump administration can choose at any moment to stop causing it. The alternative — just be a trustworthy ally and good neighbor – shouldn’t be hard at all.

*  The U.S. is a minor customer, spending about $30 million a year on 2000 tons of fish and 1000 tons of crab, and selling in return about $10 million in airplane parts, weather-monitoring and telecommunications gear, and navigation equipment. Greenland escaped the Trump administration’s April 2 “reciprocal” tariff decree (though this still imposes a 10% tax on the fish and crab) because in 2024 its government bought a plane and some aircraft parts for $40 million, leaving the U.S. with a bilateral trade surplus that year. 

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

FACT: Polling: U.S. public is against Trump tariffs by about 60%-36%.

THE NUMBERS: Negative/positive* views of Trump administration tariffs in recent polls –

	Negative	Positive
CNN/SRS (April 17-24)	55	28
New York Times/Siena (April 21-24)	55	40
NPR/Marist (April 21-23)	58	34
Washington Post/ABC News (April 18-22)	64	34
Fox News (April 18-21)	58	33
NBC News (April 11-20)	61	39
Pew Center (April 7-13)	59	39
Economist/YouGov (May 9-12)	53	30

* Topline averages across all respondents. Polling questions differ slightly: Pew, Fox, NBC, NPR/Marist, and Washington Post/ABC ask whether respondents “approve” or “disapprove” of Mr. Trump’s handling of tariffs. CNN asks whether respondents view the tariff increases as “good policy” or “bad policy,” NYT/Siena whether respondents “support” or “oppose” the tariff increases, and Economist/YouGov about whether tariffs will hurt or help the U.S. economy. 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

The Tariff Act of 1930, nicknamed “Smoot-Hawley” for the Congressional authors Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley, passed in June,  during the second year of the Herbert Hoover presidency.  The oldest living American — Pennsylvanian Naomi Whitehead, planning for her 115th birthday this fall — was then nineteen. A few thousand more Americans aged 105 years and above join her with personal memories of the event. No one else remembers a general U.S. tariff increase —​​ so for the other 337 million Americans, the experience is new.

Ms. Whitehead’s “greatest generation” concluded in the early 1930s that tariff increases had been a bad idea, and their decision guided policy for the next 80 years. What are the other 337 million 21st-century Americans thinking now, as they monitor administration tariff decrees and revisions, assess its various slogans — “new golden age,” “Production Society,” “Liberation Day,” “two dolls are enough for a girl,” “WalMart should eat the tariffs” — and look for local price and employment impacts? A stream of major media April polls provides an interim snapshot as their opinions form:

The polls — CNN/SSRS, Fox News, Washington Post/ABC News, New York Times/Siena, Pew Center, NBC News, NPR/Marist, Economist/YouGov — suggest three areas of broad consensus: high awareness of the tariff increases; an overall negative view of them; and alarm about the cost of living. The “crosstabs” and “internals,” meanwhile, suggest convergence among some groups whose views on trade policy have differed in previous 21st-century polls — college and non-college, urban and rural, high- and low-income — and apparently widening opinion gaps by race and ethnicity, and by political affiliation. A summary:

Consensus 1: Wide Opposition to Tariff Increases. Averaging the polls, about 60% of the public is negative about the Trump administration’s tariff increases, and 36% is positive. Results vary a bit by poll, but not drastically: the Washington Post/ABC’s 64%-33% split is the most negative response, and the New York Times/Siena 55%-40% division least.

Consensus 2: Prices and Cost of Living are a Top Concern. The polls likewise agree on the high priority the public currently places on prices and cost of living. In CNN/SSRS, for example, 58% of respondents cite cost as the “biggest economic problem facing [my] family,” and 9% mention tariffs specifically. NBC News likewise, asking respondents which economic problem they consider most serious, finds 44% citing “inflation and the cost of living,” while “taxes and take-home pay” and “jobs and unemployment” trail behind at 10% and 7%. Economist/YouGov has an additional insight: asking whether tariffs will help or hurt the U.S. economy in general, and then the respondent’s own personal finances, they get a 53%-30% hurt/help judgment for the national economy, and a sharper 53%-16% divide on personal finance. And a different sort of survey, last Friday’s University of Michigan consumer confidence report, shows very high awareness of tariffs and their link to price increases:

“Tariffs were spontaneously mentioned by nearly three-quarters of consumers, up from almost 60% in April; uncertainty over trade policy continues to dominate consumers’ thinking about the economy.”

Narrowing Gap: Education. Earlier 21st-century polling typically found college-educated Americans more “pro-trade” and high-school diploma holders less. The gap remains in these polls, but has narrowed as non-college Americans (especially African Americans and Hispanic) shift toward a more negative view of tariffs. NPR/Marist’s college-educated Americans, for example, disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs by 67% to 32%, and their non-college respondents agree by a somewhat smaller 57% to 43%. In CNN/SSRS likewise, college-educated Americans consider the tariffs “bad policy” by 64-23% and non-college by a smaller 50%-30% margin.

Widening Gap: Race and Ethnicity. On the other hand, past polls rarely showed wide racial and ethnic differences on trade (though Hispanic and Asian Americans at times seemed more “pro-trade” than white and African American respondents). In April’s polls, white respondents are somewhat less negative about Trump administration tariffs than other Americans (though majorities still oppose), and African American opinion is intensely critical. Fox News, for example, has white respondents opposing 56%-35%, African Americans 71%-21%, and Hispanics 60%-31%. Washington Post/ABC likewise finds white Americans disapproving 56%-42%, African Americans 86%-13%, and Hispanics 72%-26%. New York Times/Siena is the outlier, with white respondents opposing by only a small 49%-46% plurality, while African Americans oppose by 75%-16%, Hispanics by 61%-28%, and “other” (presumably combining Native American and Asian American opinion) by 61%-31%.

Widening Gap: Political. The partisan divide in these polls, on the other hand, is much wider than before. Previous 21st-century trade polls did usually find Democrats and liberals more “positive” about trade than Republicans and conservatives — i.e., either more likely to support trade liberalizing agreements and WTO rules, or more negative about tariffs and protectionism — but the April polls report much larger gaps. Democrats oppose the Trump administration’s tariffs overwhelmingly and in some polls almost unanimously, while Republicans favor them by somewhat smaller margins. Political independents are much closer to Democrats. A four-poll comparison:

• Washington Post/ABC:  Democrats “disapprove” of Mr. Trump’s tariffs by 96% to 4% and independents by 70%-28%, while Republicans “approve” by a 74% to 25% margin. Also note: 83% of Republicans “approve” of Mr. Trump’s policies overall and 15% “disapprove,” suggesting less enthusiasm for the tariffs than for other administration policies.
• NPR/Marist: Democrats disapprove 90% to 7% and independents 64%-28%; Republicans approve by 73% to 20%.
• Fox News: Democrats disapprove 88%-7%, and independents 73%-19%: Republicans approve 63%-23%.
• CNN/SRS: Democrats consider the tariffs “bad policy” by 90%-3% and independents 58%-18%; Republicans “good policy” by 64%-16%.

So: As to whether this generation of Americans will draw the same conclusions that Ms. Whitehead’s reached in the 1930s, it’s still probably too early to tell. Democrats do seem to have made up their minds, but more general opinion may not set hard until late summer or fall. But as people ponder the first general tariff increase since the Hoover era, and watch its price, employment, and other local impacts, polling does make two things pretty clear: (1) the initial judgment is quite negative, and (2) with the administration’s “new golden age,” “production society,” and “Liberation Day” rhetoric having failed, its ‘window’ to shape opinion may soon close.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

FACT: The U.S. trade deficit has nearly doubled this year.

THE NUMBERS: U.S. trade deficit (goods and services combined) –

Quarter/year	In dollars*	vs. GDP**
First quarter 2025:	$394 billion	4.2%
Fourth quarter 2024:	$250 billion	3.2%
Third quarter 2024:	$236 billion	3.1%
Second quarter 2024:	$223 billion	3.1%
First quarter 2024:	$205 billion	3.1%

 

* Census, May 2025 FT-900 release
** BEA, advance GDP estimate for the first quarter of 2025

WHAT THEY MEAN:

In an exchange with Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) at an April House Ways and Means Committee hearing (2:20:43), U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defines “success” for the Trump administration’s tariff decrees as follows:

“The deficit [i.e. trade balance] needs to go in the right direction. Manufacturing as a share of GDP needs to go in the right direction.” 

Economics and daily life offer lots of reasons to object to this.  “Manufacturing as a share of GDP,” for example, would fall during a factory boom if (say) homebuilding, digital tech firms, and retail sales grew even faster. Likewise, in a recession, the manufacturing share of GDP could rise even if Americans made many fewer cars, dental drills, harvesters, semiconductor chips, etc., so long as housing and finance crashed harder.  Trade balances, meanwhile, can provide insights on the economy, but their relationship to economic trends is often perverse: deficits tend to rise during good years and fall in recessions. And most people likely see a lower cost of living, strong growth, and job opportunities as the main indications of successful policy, whether in trade specifically or economics in general.

But shelving these high-minded arguments for a minute, how do Ambassador Greer’s two indexes look so far?

We don’t yet know about the “manufacturing share of GDP” and won’t for a while. The Bureau of Economic Analysis does these estimates every three months. Their first 2025 “GDP by Industry” release doesn’t come out until June 26th, and it covers January to March; the first data for trends since the April 2 won’t be out until late September. For the trade balance, though, the initial numbers are drifting in, and they’re pretty unappealing.

Trade-balance numbers originate in data on cargo manifests, pipeline computers, air cargo package arrivals, etc. Customs and Border Protection officers dutifully convey them to Census statisticians who collate and analyze the raw data, add in estimates of service flows, and publish the numbers every month.  Their most recent release — last Thursday’s “FT-900”, covering trade flows in March — suggests that the prospect of rising tariff rates, then the February/March tariff decrees, and the prospect of more in April, induced a rapid and massive deficit spike.

This release reports an overall U.S. March ‘trade deficit’ of $140.5 billion (for goods and services combined) — nearly double the $78.7 billion deficit of October 2024, and more than double the $68.5 billion in March 2024.  Some monthly comparisons across “sectors”:

	March 2024	October 2024	March 2025	Change 3/24-3/25
All goods and services trade	-$68.5 billion	-$73.7 billion	-$140.5 billion	+105%
All goods trade	-$93.5 billion	-$98.8 billion	-$163.5 billion	+65%
Manufacturing trade only	-$84.8 billion	-$118.8 billion	-$151.5 billion	+79%
Agricultural trade only	-$3.0 billion	-$2.5 billion	-$4.6 billion	+53%

Alternatively, the broader goods-and-services figures drawn from BEA’s GDP estimates (and still subject to some revision) show quarterly “deficits” in a $200 to $250 billion range last year, or just under 3% of GDP. The first quarter of 2025 brought a sudden escalation to nearly $400 billion, or 4.2% of GDP. This is the highest GDP ratio BEA has found in 17 years, since the pre-crisis autumn of 2008.

The obvious questions: Why is this happening? How much credit do the administration’s tariff decrees get for it?  Is the spike permanent? And if it is, what would the administration then do?   A few thoughts:

1. Why? “Trade balance” is not an independent thing, but an arithmetical calculation: exports minus imports. The January-March deficit spike is entirely because the ‘import’ side of this calculation got a lot bigger while exports stayed about the same.  The likely cause is that over these months, U.S.-based manufacturers, farmers, and construction firms were stockpiling as much metal, tools, fertilizer, paint, wiring, semiconductor chips, and other inputs as they could to save money before tariffs raised their costs, and retailers were doing the same for spring and summer inventory. So in an immediate sense, the Trump administration’s tariff decrees pretty certainly caused the spike.

2. Is it permanent? Census’ next report will likely still show some import-booming, but over the summer, imports will probably drop back. So all else equal, the deficit would be smaller later in the year.  But by then two new factors will probably come into play, one pushing deficits down and the other pushing them up. They are:

(a) A recession would cut trade deficits: If the U.S. is in recession by July, Americans will buy fewer cars, houses, and consumer goods. Factory slowdowns and canceled construction projects will likewise cut imports of industrial goods.  As in past recessions — 1991, 2001, 2008 — trade deficits would then likely drop. The administration might take solace in that, though the public probably wouldn’t.

(b) Deteriorating savings/investment balance will raise them: Meanwhile, though, the Trump administration’s domestic goals, if met, will lead to higher long-term trade deficits.  The fundamental nature of trade balances is not ‘the incremental results of trade policy here and abroad’, in which balances by country are separate and unconnected data points.  Rather, the trade balance is a core GDP ‘identity’: whether surplus or deficit, it will always equal any gap between national savings and national investment.  If Congress’ potential tax cut is larger than the administration’s tariff increases, government “dissaving” — i.e. the fiscal deficit — will rise. Unless this is offset by some unexpected surge in family savings, or a collapse in business investment, the trade deficit will then grow rather than shrink. This is exactly what happened after the first Trump term’s combination of tariffs on steel, aluminum, and most Chinese-made goods with an income tax cut.

3. And so? The early data look awkward for the trade-balance measurement of success the administration’s senior officials favor. This is probably temporary, but the mix of tariffs and tax policy makes higher long-term deficits more likely than smaller ones. As to the “manufacturing share of GDP,” no particular reason for optimism there either.  Since the first Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods, steel, and aluminum in 2018, this share has fallen from 10.9% to 9.9% — either regardless of the tariffs, or in part because of them, given that they raised U.S. manufacturing costs. More of this is probably coming, given the Commerce Department’s apparent plans to make factory managers pay 25% more for basic manufacturing inputs including metals, semiconductor chips, and critical minerals, and the April 2 decree’s 10% tariffs on raw materials, wiring, paint, glass, light-bulbs, ceramics, etc. So there’s a high chance that the administration’s policy will drive both of its chosen “success” indicators — as well as better indicators such as the cost of living — in the “wrong” direction, not the “right” one. What does it then do?

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Ambassador Greer at the hearing, with prepared text and full video. An exchange with Rep. Boyle on “success” as defined by trade balance and manufacturing GDP share at 2:20:43.

Data:

Census’ most recent monthly FT-900 trade release, with exports, imports, and balances generally, by product type, and by country.

… the FT-900 archives back to 1991.
… and a one-page summary of U.S. imports, exports, and trade balances from 1960 to 2024.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis’ data on quarterly and annual GDP estimates, along with its GDP by Industry calculations, services trade, investment flows, and more.

Farm trade figures from USDA’s Global Agricultural Trade System.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

FACT: The 1890s were not America’s “wealthiest” age.

THE NUMBERS:  U.S. share of world GDP, PPP basis*  –

2024	15%
2016	16%
1950	27%
1913	19%
1890s avg.	~15%?
1870	9%
1820	2%

* Angus Maddison calculations for 1820-1950; IMF World Economic Outlook April 2025 for 2016 and 2024.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

The Trump administration’s binge of tariff decrees, proclamations, and amendments leaves the U.S. with a tariff rate hard to calculate since it changes every week, but likely somewhere between 15% and 25%. Internationally, this is a strange tax-and-trade neighborhood for America; the neighbors are a sketchy assortment of least-developed countries, failed states, shady tax havens, small islands, and rogue states. (See below for some examples.) But the administration and Mr. Trump personally justify high tariffs not by alluding to the success of modern high-tariff countries, but by looking a long way back through the American past. To cite an eccentric and frequently repeated comment:

“In the 1890s our country was probably the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs.”

What to make of this?

It’s true that America had high tariff rates in the 1890s. The U.S. International Trade Commission’s table of tariff rates back to 1891 shows a “trade-weighted average” tariff averaging 27.9% from 1891 to 1900, over ten times the 2.4% of 2023.  It’s wrong, though, to say American wealth peaked relative to other countries, let alone in absolute terms, at that time.  Based on the research of Angus Maddison et al., the U.S.’ share of ‘global GDP’ in the 1890s was probably around 15%. This is a lot higher than it had been before the Civil War (which was also a high-tariff period), but well below the levels of the 1950s and 1960s (after 30 years of steadily falling tariffs), and about the same as it is today.

More important, Americans at the time didn’t feel rich at all. A four-part stat snapshot:

Short lives: America’s average life expectancy at birth in 1900 (Table 13) was 47. This is six years below today’s lowest in the world, the 53 years the World Bank reports for Chad and Lesotho. The short life expectancy in part reflects the extremely high pre-20th century infant mortality rate — more than one in ten American children died before the first birthday — but also frequent death in early life and middle age due to accidents, infections, and contagious diseases. No vaccines, no blood transfusion, no antibiotics, no anti-inflammatory drugs.

Injustice: Work and daily life in 1890s America were deeply unjust and growing rapidly worse. Between 1890 and 1895, 16 states adopted segregationist constitutions and laws covering employment, marriage, voting, education, railroad and streetcar travel, and other matters.  The Supreme Court’s 1896 “Plessy v. Ferguson” decision accepted them all.

Bad economy: GDP accounting and data collection started in the early 1930s, so we don’t precisely know 19th-century growth rates.* (One reputable economic-history project guesses around 3.0% over the 1880s and 1890s.This is slightly below the 3.5% average over the Biden administration, and a bit above the 2.5% average since the 2008/2009 financial crisis.) The decade’s main economic event, though, was the four-year Depression following the “Panic of 1893.” It introduced the word “unemployment” to common American discourse, and prompted the first mass protest march in U.S. history, when “Coxey’s Army” of 6,000 desperate Ohio and Pennsylvania workers marched to the National Mall to appeal (unsuccessfully) for federal relief.  Those who had jobs, meanwhile, worked on average for 2980 hours a year – 1200 hours more than modern-day workers, meaning 10 hours a day, six days a week, with no holidays.

Widespread poverty: Americans were poor and used most of their income for life necessities.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “100 Years of Consumer Spending” reports that in 1900, the average American family spent 58% of its income on food and clothes.  Today the comparable share is 12%.  Even the top end of “Gilded Age” society had only 8,000 automobile owners and 600,000 mostly communal telephones, in a country of 76 million.

As to the role of tariffs in all this: Gilded Age tariff system defenders argued that high tariffs protected Americans from “low-wage” European and Asian competition. Critics said it mainly protected monopolies, while encouraging political corruption and depressing middle-class living standards.  Public opinion polls weren’t invented until the 1930s, so we don’t really know how the public in general felt. But opposition to high-tariff policy in the 1890s and 1900s was strong, organized, and persistent enough to convince 42 state legislatures to pass an amendment to the Constitution in 1913 authorizing the creation of the income tax, which replaced the tariff as the main federal revenue source.

So, not an era of wealth and not a tax policy the public loved.  Nor a time anyone should want to revisit.

 

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Laura Duffy for PPI on why tariffs are a bad form of taxation: can’t raise enough money to support a modern government; non-transparent; inequitable; harm to downstream industries.

Back then: 

Two book recs for those wanting a deep dive into Gilded Age tariff debates:

Pioneer journalist Ida Tarbell’s contemporary take in The Tariff in Our Times (1915) associates high-tariff policy more with monopolies, high prices, and corruption than with “wealth”. Samples: “extortion and brigandage”, “jobbery”, “shameless looting”, etc.

Doug Irwin’s magisterial Clashing Over Commerce (2017) reviews U.S. trade and tariff history from the 18th century forward: the First Congress, the “Tariff of Abominations” and the nullification crisis, McKinley and Hoover, Wilson’s replacement of tariffs with the income tax and Roosevelt’s Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, 20th-century liberal internationalism and its critics, the first Trump administration and the equivocal Biden term.

Big picture:

Via the OECD, Angus Maddison’s data on world GDP, growth, population, etc., 1-2,000.

And economic-history consortium “Measuring Worth” tries to calculate growth, inflation, and other data back to the 18th century.

Now:

A tariff rate between 15% and 25% puts Americans in the world’s highest tariff bracket.  Per the World Bank’s “weighted-mean” calculations, only three jurisdictions have tariff rates above 20%, and 21 have rates between 12% and 21%. They’re very diverse — small islands, tax havens, least-developed countries, conflicted or failed states, a few bad actors — but share a common theme of inability, as being too small, too poor, or too disorderly, to operate broader-based, fairer taxes on incomes or consumption. The top three are Bermuda at 29.5%, the Solomon Islands at 20.7%, and the Cayman Islands at 20.4%.  Here are ten of the 21 between 12% and 20%:

18.2%        Congo (Republic)
17.6%        Djibouti
16.8%        Chad
16.3%        Bahamas
14.7%        Nauru
14.6%        Barbados
14.5%        Central African Republic
12.7%        Ethiopia
12.6%        Venezuela
12.1%        Iran

For an alternative source, the WTO’s Tariff Profiles 2024 gets somewhat different numbers because it uses ‘simple averages’ and ‘trade-weighted averages’ rather than ‘weighted means’, and doesn’t cover all the small islands. But the picture is pretty similar.

And last:

A mordant sound-track for the next few months from folk legend Pete Seeger: Big Muddy.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

FACT: Alarm clocks, baby strollers, battery-powered sex toys, and thermos bottles may vanish from American stores by the end of May.

THE NUMBERS:  Year-on-year drop in container arrivals at Port of Los Angeles – 

 

May 2024 / May 2025*	-33.0%
February 2008 / February 2009	-32.6%
March 2019 / March 2020	-30.9%

* Comparing scheduled container cargo arrivals for April 27 to May 17, 2025, with actual cargo arrivals in May 2024.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Here’s the Treasury Secretary Mr. Bessent in March, advocating higher tariffs and lecturing his audience: “Cheap goods are not the essence of the American dream.”

Since then the Trump administration has released a turbid stream of extra-Constitutional “emergency” and “national security” decrees raising tariff rates, mixed with amendments to these decrees to raise rates higher, exempt some goods, or change policy for particular countries. They are complex and frequently change (as with yesterday’s complicated rewrite of the March auto decree). But taken together, and as of this week, they basically leave a tariff rate of 10% for almost all goods (with exceptions for many Canadian and Mexican products and energy), plus the 1.4% average for the permanent, Congressionally authorized tariff system, and 145% on most Chinese-made goods (with exceptions for smartphones and some other IT goods). One result of all these sudden new costs: per press reports, a group of retail CEOs informed the administration a week ago that Americans may start seeing “empty shelves” as early as mid-May. In more specific terms, as the prices of many foods, most clothing and shoes, back-to-school goods, and much else rise, a swathe of cheap and popular mid-range home goods — blenders and alarm clocks, umbrellas and strollers, sex toys and toasters — might vanish altogether.

Here’s why:

A 10% tariff means higher prices, but (as we noted in the case of toasters last summer) probably won’t much change production or trade patterns. The 145% tariff on Chinese goods, by contrast, will often act more like an embargo. A striking New York Times visualization last Sunday (subs. req.), built around the image of a house, suggests the likely impact by reporting the Chinese share of American imports for dozens of home goods: 10% or lower for rugs, mattresses, TVs, and cars; 20%-50% for metal shelves, refrigerators, washers and driers; 90% and above for thermos bottles, microwave ovens, and umbrellas; a 99% peak for alarm clocks and, well, toasters.

Official data on the real-world impacts of all these decrees — trade flows, prices, employment, growth — will flow in slowly over May and June. Some early clues, though, come from the “Port Optimizer” system run by the Port of Los Angeles, which offers near-future forecasts of container-ship arrivals. It predicts 17 ships carrying 83,351 containers* this week, 14 ships carrying 71,520 containers next week, and (a bit more optimistically) 18 carrying 89,917 containers the week after that. Compared to May of 2024, this suggests container arrivals have dropped by 30% to 35%. This would rival or possibly exceed the 32.6% year-on-year fall in February 2009 (after the 2008 financial crisis) and the 30.9% drop in March 2020 as the U.S. economy closed during the COVID-19 pandemic as the steepest decline of the 21st century.

The Port’s cargo figures also hint at where this drop is fastest. It handled $112 billion worth of incoming imports from China last year — a third of its $333 billion in total cargo traffic, and about a quarter of the $439 billion in all U.S. goods imports from China. With the 10% global tariff likely to raise prices and reduce but not end trade, and the 145% tariffs on most Chinese goods after the April 2 decree making many goods prohibitively expensive, the Port Optimizer’s vessel-arrival forecasts — which mirror press reports on plummeting April ship departures from China — likely show a steep plunge in arrivals of Chinese-made home goods.

What would this mean in practice? Overall, China’s share of U.S. goods imports last year was a large but not overwhelming 13%. (In dollars, $439 billion of $3.295 trillion.) As the Times visualization shows, though, China’s share imports is highest in consumer goods, and for some small home appliances exceeds 90%. A quick twelve-product table, with some products used in the Times piece (though using “quantity” rather than “value” shares) and others from our own files:

Product	Value	Quantity (total)	Quantity (China)	Chinese Share	Alternative sources
Alarm clocks	$50 million	11.49 million	11.43 million	99%	Taiwan
Battery-powered sex toys	$450 million	45.0 million	43.6 million	97%	Korea, Germany
Baby strollers	$392 million	5.68 million	5.45 million	96%	Vietnam
Microwave ovens	$1.40 billion	19.7 million	18.5 million	95%	Malaysia, Thailand
Hair dryers	$406 million	23.8 million	20.9 million	88%	Cambodia
Clarinets	$35 million	96,200	66,200	67%	Indonesia
Blenders & juicers	$744 million	45.0 million	38.4 million	85%	Mexico
Toothbrushes	$289 million	1.24 billion	755 million	61%	Germany, Vietnam
Hammers	$111 million	21.15 million	10.30 million	49%	Mexico
Ball-point pens	$481 million	2.75 billion	1.28 billion	47%	Japan, Mexico
Vacuum cleaners	$2.98 billion	63.6 million	22.2 million	35%	Vietnam
Razors	$482 million	1.47 billion	210 million	14%	Mexico, Greece

 

These are just the sort of “cheap goods” Mr. Bessent dismissed in March: kitchen gadgets, low-priced clocks, baby goods, personal care products and simple tools, musical instruments, and so forth. The razors, vacuum cleaners, hammers, and pens at the bottom of the table will likely cost more in the coming weeks and months but stay on the shelves. The clocks, sex toys, strollers, and microwaves near the top, though, might not be available at any price.

So: Nationwide, Americans will be deciding over the next months whether Bessent is right. More personally and locally, if you’re looking to restock your kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, workbench, home office, etc. with small but useful things this year, do it now.

* Technically 83,351 “TEU”.  The TEU, standing for “twenty-foot equivalent unit” is the standard measurement of container traffic. One TEU is one 20’ x 21’ x 8.5’ container, and a 40-foot container counts as two TEU.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Data:

The New York Times illustrates the Chinese place in American home goods.

The Port of Los Angeles’ container statistics, with monthly totals in TEUs since 1995 and annual totals since 1989.

… the Port Optimizer tracks week-by-week vessel and cargo arrivals.

… the Port’s “Facts and Figures” page.

And the U.S. International Trade Commission’s Dataweb.

From the administration: 

Bessent dismisses affordable goods in March.

… and last week, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett says no chance of empty shelves, everything is under control.

Public reaction so far:

Public opinion probably won’t set hard until Americans get a few months’ experience of the tariffs’ real-world effects. The interim judgment, though, is bleak.  Just as the Port Optimizer gives before-the-facts hints at actual cargo arrivals, data from seven major poll releases this past week — Pew, Fox News, Washington Post/ABC News, New York Times/Siena, CNN/SSRS, NPR/Marist, and Harvard’s Institute of Politics (of Americans under 30) — provides a snapshot of attitudes after the April 2 decree but before the real-life impact. We’ll look in more detail in a later Trade Fact, but the average across all six media polls has 60% of Americans “disapproving” of tariff increases while 36% “approve.” Among the individual polls, “disapproval” rates range from 55% to 65%, and “approval” from 33% to 40%.

And for HTS enthusiasts:

For Dataweb users, Harmonized Tariff Schedule codes for the 12 products in the table are:

82052000 for hammers;
821210 and 821220 for razors;
850811, 850819, and 850860 for vacuum cleaners;
8509400015 and 8509400030 for blenders and juicers;
851650 for microwave ovens;
851631 for hair dryers,
87150000 for strollers;
9019102020 and 9010102030 for battery-powered sex toys. We haven’t included non-battery options, not because of prudishness but because HTS does not give them their own lines, instead discreetly concealing them in general “other goods” lines in Chapters 39 and 40.
91051100 and 91051900 for alarm clocks;
9205904020 for clarinets;
96032100 for toothbrushes;
96082000 for ball-point pens.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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FACT: Senate to vote next week on ‘terminating’ Trump tariffs.

THE NUMBERS:  IMF World Economic Outlook forecast changes from January 2025 to April 2025 –

World growth projection	-0.5% lower
U.S. growth projection	-0.9% lower
World inflation projection	0.4% higher
U.S. inflation projection	1.0% higher

WHAT THEY MEAN:

As the Senate prepares to vote next week on a resolution from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Finance Committee Ranking Member) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) terminating the Trump administration’s April 2 tariff decree, here’s a sad Friday bulletin from Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley News:

“Mack Trucks will lay off 250 to 350 workers at its Macungie-area facility, the company confirmed Friday. The job reductions will occur over the next three months in part because of market uncertainty and the impact of tariffs, the truck maker said in a prepared statement. ‘Heavy-duty truck orders continue to be negatively affected by market uncertainty about freight rates and demand, possible regulatory changes, and the impact of tariffs,’ company spokeswoman Kimberly Pupillo said.”

Pulling back for a broader view, the International Monetary Fund’s new World Economic Outlook — out yesterday morning — drops the Fund’s January optimism about a “growing and normalizing” global economy for a year of uncertainty, slowed growth, and rising inflation. Samples:

“In the United States, consumer, business, and investor sentiment was optimistic at the beginning of the year but has recently shifted to a notably more pessimistic stance as uncertainty has taken hold and new tariffs have been announced. In labor markets, hiring has slowed in many countries, and layoffs have risen. Meanwhile, progress on disinflation has mostly stalled, and inflation has edged upward in some cases.”
…
“[G]lobal growth is … lower than the projections in the January 2025 WEO Update, by 0.5 percentage points.  … U.S. growth is projected to decrease in 2025 to 1.8 percent, 1 percentage point lower than the rate for 2024 as well as 0.9 percentage points lower than the forecast rate in January. The downward revision is a result of greater policy uncertainty, trade tensions, and a softer demand outlook, given slower-than-anticipated consumption growth. Tariffs are also expected to weigh on growth in 2026.
…
“For advanced economies, the inflation forecast for 2025 has been revised upward by 0.4 percentage points since January, [and] the US forecast by 1.0 percentage point. For the United States, this reflects stubborn price dynamics in the services sector as well as a recent uptick in the growth of the price of core goods (excluding food and energy) and the supply shock from recent tariffs.”

Put concisely, on the IMF’s “macro” scale, Mr. Trump’s tariff decrees have cut $300 billion of U.S. growth this year, raised U.S. inflation by a point, and damaged financial markets. The contraction of Pennsylvania’s Mack Truck operation is a local and personal example of all this, and it’s far from rare. Some more scenes from the past week: Minnesota manufacturers canceling expansion plans; Tennessee Asian restaurants, North Carolina craft brewers and Arizona auto dealerships facing sudden price spikes and loss of customers; Indiana landscapers seeing “fear in the market” and orders put on hold; Texas’ natural gas exporters grappling simultaneously with falling gas prices, higher port construction costs, and potential retaliations; and (seen through the eyes of Merced Rep. Adam Gray) California’s Central Valley farmers worrying about looming foreign retaliations against their $24 billion in exports of almonds, wine, vegetables, and other crops.

What might be done? Congress, not presidents, has Constitutional power over tariff rates and can stop the bleeding whenever it chooses. An inflection point will come next week as Sens. Wyden and Paul, having successfully gotten the Senate to pass one resolution in March to terminate the February Canada/Mexico/China “emergency” decree, now propose a second. This Joint Resolution would void the full April 2 decree, including its worldwide 10% tariff, its 125% tariff on Chinese-made goods, and its (temporarily suspended but not canceled) “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50% on 57 countries. Their concise 72-word bill reads as follows:

“Joint Resolution terminating the national emergency declared to impose global tariffs.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

“That pursuant to section 202 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622), the national emergency declared on April 2, 2025, by the President in Executive Order 14257 (90 Fed. Reg. 15041) is terminated effective on the date of the enactment of this joint resolution.”

Senate passage of course is only one step. In their offices on the Capitol Building’s south end, Republican House leaders have spent the spring devising exotic procedural devices to avoid a vote on tariffs.  It’s worked so far, but their passivity, is not consensus. Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) leads all 19 House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee (the one responsible for tariff policy) in a Resolution to void both February’s Canada/Mexico/China decree and the April 2 decree. And Constitution-friendly Republican Rep. Don Bacon from Nebraska offers another to require Congressional approval for any future “emergency” or “national security” tariffs.

Looking ahead to next week’s first step, a lot of harm is already done. And whether in the IMF’s “global economy” view, or the Lehigh Valley News’ “neighborhoods and communities” perspective, it is metastasizing daily. The sooner Congress reclaims its authority and restores Constitutionally legitimate policymaking, the less the harm will spread, and the more quickly the U.S. and the world alike will heal.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

The Constitution and its friends: 

U.S. Constitution text, from the National Archives. See Article I, Section 8, first clause, for “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.”

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) propose terminating the April 2 “emergency” declaration.

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and House Ways and Means Democrats propose terminating both the April 2 global and February 1 Canada/Mexico/China “emergency” decrees, and require any future “emergency” and “national security” tariffs to get Congressional approval.

And Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) with Foreign Relations Ranking Member Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.), Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) with a look-ahead bill to require a Congressional vote on any future tariff imposition.

Real-world perspectives: 

The Lehigh Valley News on layoffs at Mack Truck.

… and State Rep. Josh Siegel appeals for Congressional delegation help.

Rep. Adam Gray (D-Calif.) on tariffs, retaliations, and the dent they’re putting in Central Valley farm exports and rural income.

Tennessee’s Asian restaurants and North Carolina’s craft brewers grapple with price shocks and lost business.

Arizona auto dealers and Indiana landscapers ponder falling sales, while Texas’ LNG exporters watch prices drop while infrastructure costs rise.

And economic analysis:

A gloomy look around the world from IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

And former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (video, via the Peterson Institute for International Economics), explains the fallacies of Trump administration tariffs and their likely effects at home.

For more detail, the IMF’s April World Economic Outlook has growth, inflation, and other projections, and analysis of tariff shocks, business uncertainty, and their likely impacts.

… and as a comparison, its happier late-January Outlook update, with our justifiably apprehensive comment at the time.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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FACT: Five-eighths of U.S. imports are “business inputs,” three-eighths “consumer goods.”

THE NUMBERS:  Imports of U.S. goods by type, 2024 –

U.S. GDP. 2024	$29.185 trillion
All goods imports:	$3.270 trillion
Consumer goods:	$1.225 trillion
“Capital goods”:	$1.113 trillion
“Intermediate” goods:	$0.534 trillion
“Raw materials”:	$0.327 trillion

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Reviewing the likely effects of this month’s Trump administration tariffs on the U.S. space industry this week, PPI space expert Mary Guenther has a blunt warning:

“The ever-evolving tariff regime … will raise the cost of making rockets and satellites in the U.S., limit industry access to core inputs and materials, and encourage boycotts of American products and services abroad.” 

Some background, then we can place her judgment against the administration’s view that tariffs mean ‘more manufacturing industry’:

The Trump administration’s “reciprocal” tariff system launched at midnight last Wednesday. Greeted icily by the stock and bond markets the next morning, it lasted about 5½ hours before “pausing” just after lunch. It and may or may not resurface in July. The April 2 decree which created it, though, imposed not one but two new tariff systems. The second is still in place, though with big holes punched into it with a sudden Friday-night exemption for semiconductors, smartphones, TVs, and some other IT manufacturers. (This is roughly 22% of U.S. imports from China, and 10% of all imports, and may last or itself be replaced by a “national security” tariff in a month.) Assuming the administration sticks with v.3 for a while, or returns to v.2, here are the basics:

1.  Contents: The April 2 decree imposes
(a) a 10% tariff on all goods imports from countries other than China, Canada, and Mexico, except energy and (provisionally) the IT manufactures noted above;
(b) a 125% tariff on everything Chinese-made other than the IT goods (which, since the February Canada/Mexico/China decree remains in effect, makes a total rate of 145%, except the IT goods at 20%), and
(c) an exemption for Mexican- and Canadian-made goods entering under the still-surviving “USMCA.” Separate March decrees put 25% tariffs on cars, auto parts, steel, and aluminum, and the administration has threatened though not yet imposed similar 25% tariffs on medicine, lumber, copper, and semiconductor chips.
As a final note (d), the Congressionally authorized, Constitutionally legitimate tariff system is still in place and averages about 1.5%.

Tentatively assuming that the 145% tariff on Chinese goods means near but not total collapse of trade, while imports continue from the rest of the world, the likely overall U.S. average rate would then likely range from 15% to 20%.  In U.S. history, these rates resemble those of the Hoover administration from 1930-32.  Or, looking around the world today rather than backward through American history, the U.S.’ “peer” tariff economies would be countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Congo, and Chad in the 12% to 20% tariff range. (See below for a couple of tables.)

2. Impacts: What sort of impact would this tariff system have? In a “macro” sense, Yale BudgetLab estimates GDP growth cut by -1.1%, and prices up by 2.9%. More immediately, families buying clothes, groceries, appliances, flowers, and cars can expect prices to rise. (This won’t surprise them: the most recent UMichigan consumer-confidence survey reveals the highest inflation expectations since 1981.) But as Ms. Guenther implies and the numbers above show, imports of business inputs – “intermediate goods” like chemicals and metals, raw materials like energy and metal ores, and capital goods such as power equipment — are substantially larger than imports of consumer goods. So the Trump tariffs are likely to raise U.S. production costs even more than they raise mall and grocery prices.

This is why the administration’s view of tariffs that tariffs, in some way, make manufacturing companies larger seems so blinkered and naive. Taking automobiles as an example, the administration’s 25% tariff on cars would raise prices and push Americans to buy locally made cars. But its identical 25% tariffs on metals and parts (and depending on which administration official is speaking, on semiconductors too), plus its 10% tariffs on wiring, paint, glass, and so on, and its 125% tariff on any auto-related things made in China, will also make it much more expensive to build cars in the United States. So the likely outcome is that Americans will import fewer cars, and also buy fewer U.S.-made cars, while U.S.-made cars get more expensive abroad and also risk retaliation. That points to a smaller U.S. auto sector. The same goes for refrigerators, motorcycles, washing machines, planes, and the space industry’s rockets, satellites, guidance systems, specialized sensors and computers, and so on.

With this in mind, some specially protected “manufacturing sectors” might gain. But U.S. manufacturing in general will have higher costs and probably get relatively smaller. The earlier round of Trump tariffs provides some guidance here: per a 2023 U.S. International Trade Commission study, the 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs over three years raised the two metals’ output by $2.2 billion, but simultaneously shrank the U.S. auto parts, machinery, toolmaking and other metal-using industries by $3.5 billion. On a larger scale, since the metals and “301” tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018/2019, manufacturing has fallen from 10.9% to 9.9% of U.S. GDP.  Real manufacturing output growth and employment totals, meanwhile, have slowed from the annual $40 billion and 100,000 net jobs averages of the post-financial crisis Obama years to $30 billion and 30,000.

So: Good that the administration listened to the financial markets’ frank advice last week and, at least for now, abandoned its “reciprocal tariff” plan. They should keep listening — to markets worrying about macro impacts, to Guenther and other industry experts describing likely impacts on firms and industries, and to public opinion contemplating price shocks. All of them, in their different ways, are saying very similar things.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
• Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
• Offer a positive alternative.

Along these lines, applause for two new bills, introduced last week, to safeguard the U.S. economy and defend the Constitution:

House Ways and Means Democrats call for canceling the April 2 decree and the February decree relating to Canada and Mexico, and for requiring Congressional votes of approval for any new “emergency” or  “national security” tariffs.

Finance Committee Ranking Member Sen. Ron Wyden (R-Ore.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), likewise.

Current tariff rates:

The actual U.S. tariff schedule. It is not a very good system, but is Congressionally authorized and Constitutionally legitimate.

… the Trump administration’s April 2 tariff decree.

… the April 9 version.

… and the April 11 “Clarification of Revisions, as Amended.”

Backwards through history:

The U.S. International Trade Commission has U.S. tariff rates (trade-weighted) from 2024 back to 1891.

Around the world: 

The WTO’s Tariff Profiles 2024 makes it easy to look up and compare tariff rates (simple average, trade-weighted average, by sector, etc.).

… and the World Bank has an even easier interactive comparative table (though with “trade-weighted” tariff rates only) by country from the World Bank.

And a couple of tables:

1.  An educated guess at this week’s U.S. tariff rate, placed against tariff rates abroad and in U.S. history:

United States (Trump v.1 “reciprocal,” April 2, 2025)	30.0%??
Bermuda	29.5%
United States (Hoover administration, 1932)	19.8%
United States (Trump v.2, April 9, 2025)	18.0%??
Chad	16.8%
Republic of Congo	15.2%
United States (Trump v.3, April 12, 2025)	15.0%??
Venezuela	12.8%
Ethiopia	12.7%
Iran	12.1%
Zimbabwe	11.4%
Egypt	10.4%

 

European Union	2.7%
U.S. (2024)	2.4%
China	2.2%
Japan	1.9%
U.S. (2016)	1.5%
Singapore	0.0%

* WTO Tariff Profiles 2024 when available; World Bank database for Egypt, Iran, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Chad. Bermuda’s average tariff rate is the highest known current rate.

  2.  And an attempted breakdown of imports by current tariff type (though policy has been changing unpredictably).  Using last year’s $3.27 trillion in imports as a base, and assuming the semiconductor, smart-phone, TV, etc., exemption stays on:

Chinese-made: 145% on $345 billion.

“National security” (232): 25% on about $500 billion in cars, auto parts, steel & aluminum, likely also medicines, copper, and lumber.

China partial exemptions: 20% (for now) on $96 billion in Chinese-made semiconductors, TVs, smartphones, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and solar technology.

April 2 decree “worldwide”: 10% on about $1.2 trillion in Asian but non-Chinese, European, Latin American and Caribbean, Middle East, African, and Pacific goods.

0%: About $820 billion in “USMCA” goods, plus all energy, plus $200 billion worth of exempted and non-Chinese-made semiconductors and other IT goods.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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