The trade policy landscape shifted dramatically in early 2025 with the introduction of sweeping import tariffs. The U.S. imposed substantial duties on a wide range of goods and trading partners, marking a sharp departure from decades of trade liberalization. Now, with several months of data, we can start to see how these changes have played out in practice. Did tariff rates rise uniformly across all imports, or were some countries and products more affected than others? Have trade flows continued as before, or have imports declined in response to higher tariffs?
In this blog post, we examine recent data and measure how much importers are effectively paying in duties today compared with before, and how import levels have responded to these new costs. Drawing on the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly import records―which capture every merchandise shipment entering the country, down to the product category and country of origin―we piece together the recent story of American trade.