NY Fed report says Americans pay for almost all of Trump's tariffs [View all]

Source: Reuters

February 12, 2026 11:16 AM EST Updated 1 hour ago


Feb 12 (Reuters) - Americans are shouldering almost all of President Donald Trump’s import tax surge, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday. The bank said 90% of the tariffs imposed by the president on imported goods are borne by American consumers and companies. The report pushes back against the Trump administration’s argument that the levies are paid by foreigners.

The report evaluated how tariffs impacted the economy last year, when the average of the taxes went from 2.6% to 13%. The report noted that the average level shifted over the course of the year and was at its highest in April and May, when Trump pumped up tariffs on Chinese goods to 125% before lowering them back to a still heady 113%.

The authors based their analysis on how tariffs worked in the first Trump term. When faced with these types of taxes, “our past work found that foreign exporters did not lower their prices at all, so the full incidence of the tariffs was borne by the U.S. That is, there was 100% pass-through from tariffs into import prices.”

The paper said that between January and August of last year Americans took 94% of the hit from Trump’s tariffs. During September and October, that ebbed to 92%, settling to 86% in November. The New York Fed findings jibe with a report put out by the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ny-fed-report-says-americans-pay-almost-all-trumps-tariffs-2026-02-12/