New Studies Challenge Who Really Pays for Tariffs

If you were wondering who is paying for President Donald Trump’s sweeping import taxes, look in the mirror: nearly every penny ends up coming out of U.S. consumers’ pockets.

That’s according to a pair of research reports this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Congressional Budget Office, both of which found that the burden of tariffs was falling hardest on Americans, not foreigners.

The research sheds light on one of the main points of contention about the tariffs Trump imposed on nearly every U.S. trading partner last year: The findings differ from statements by members of the Trump Administration who say foreign companies and entities are absorbing much of the cost.

As of November, importers were paying 86% of the import tax costs, meaning the vast majority of tariff costs fell on U.S. companies and consumers, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Thursday.

The researchers analyzed trade data collected by the Census Bureau. They found importers always pay the tariffs, but exporters can effectively bear the costs themselves if they cut their prices, which they have only done slightly.

“U.S. firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025,” Mary Amiti, head of labor and product markets at the New York Fed’s Research and Statistics Group, wrote in a blog post sharing the findings.

Supporters of the tariffs, however, say that data may be misleading. Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran, who served as Trump’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisers before the president appointed him to the Fed in September, addressed the concept Monday.

“It’s entirely inappropriate to say that we can conclude from those data…that U.S. agents are bearing the burden of the tariff, because some of those companies are actually subsidiaries of foreign companies,” Miran said, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that foreign companies were paying only 5% of the tariffs, leaving U.S. companies and consumers to pay the remaining 95%. The CBO went further and estimated that U.S. companies only paid 30% of the tariff burden, passing the rest on to consumers.

What’s more, the nonpartisan research group concluded that the tariffs will allow U.S.-based competitors to raise their own prices, offsetting whatever costs the companies absorbed.

Some members of Trump’s own party have expressed concerns about the economic effects of the tariff policies.

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to end the state of emergency that Trump used to justify the tariffs on Canada that he announced shortly after taking office last year. The vote was nearly along party lines, with six Republicans breaking ranks.

The measure was largely symbolic because even if passed by the Senate, it does not have enough support to override a presidential veto.