The Shifting U.S. Import Landscape: Recent Changes in Tariffs and Trade

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.

Effective Tariffs Before and After the 2025 Trade Policy Shift

To understand how trade patterns have shifted in response to tariff policies, we begin by examining changes in effective tariff rates. Following standard practice, we define effective tariffs as the value of import duties collected for a set of goods divided by the total value of the goods (exclusive of the duty). This calculation may differ slightly from statutory (or legal) tariff rates, since some products enter without duties or benefit from specific exemptions or exclusions.

The following two figures show effective tariff rates for selected trading partners (top) and for selected industries (bottom) from January 2024 through October 2025. Before February 2025 (marked by a vertical dashed black line), tariff rates were relatively stable and low across four major U.S. trading partners. China had the highest pre-policy-shift effective tariff rate at approximately 10% to 11%, while Mexico, Canada and the EU all had minimal tariff rates near 0% to 1%.

With the implementation of new tariff policies, there is a dramatic increase in effective tariff rates, particularly for China. China’s effective tariff rate surges from about 10% to 11% to peak at roughly 45% by mid-2025. The EU sees a more modest increase, to around 8% to 9%, while Mexico’s effective tariff rate rises to approximately 5%. Canada experiences the smallest increase, with its effective tariff reaching about 3% to 4%. Most of the imports from Mexico and Canada comply with the rules of the USMCA and thus enter the U.S. duty-free, leading to a low level of average effective tariffs.

We can see a similar pattern among different industries (the bottom figure). Effective tariffs are stable during 2024 but, in early 2025, start to increase. Across most of the major types of imports shown, effective tariff rates increase by 15% to 17%, with the exception of computer and electronic products, for which the increase is lower.

The Impact of Tariffs on Import Levels

Economic theory suggests that an increase in the costs of imported goods may lead to a decline in their purchase. We now look at how tariffs changed total imports to the U.S. from different trade partners. The figure below shows trends in imports to the U.S. from four major trading partners from January 2024 to October 2025, indexed to 2024 monthly averages. A significant divergence occurs after February 2025 (again, marked by a vertical dashed black line). Trade policy changes had differential effects across trading partners and over time, with imports from China experiencing the most severe reduction and imports from the EU showing an initial surge (before most tariffs on it were imposed) followed by a decline.

The timing of these changes in import levels coincides with the changes in effective tariffs we highlighted earlier. Chinese import volumes fell sharply following the spike in effective tariffs—a pattern consistent with standard trade responses to higher costs. Since effective tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and the EU were much smaller than those on goods from China, we don’t see a decline in imports of the same magnitude. The EU experienced an increase in effective tariffs after the other major trading partners did, indicating that the sourcing of imports may have momentarily shifted to the EU, where tariffs were initially lower.

Looking more closely at imports from China—by industry category, specifically—reveals substantial variation in how different sectors responded to the new tariff regime. As the next figure shows, computer and electronic products imported from China suffered the most severe decline for several months, plummeting to approximately 35% of their 2024 monthly average. Furniture and related products also fell substantially, with imports of these items fluctuating near only about 50% of pre-tariff levels. Imports of apparel and leather products showed high volatility with partial recovery by mid-2025, though they remained well below baseline.

Because tariffs on Chinese imports increased the most, some purchasers shifted to other suppliers with lower tariffs. The figure below shows the evolution of imports of certain goods from Mexico, Canada and the EU and from countries in Asia other than China. Apparel and leather product imports from Mexico, Canada and the EU did not change much relative to 2024 levels, but those from other Asian economies saw a moderate increase. For computer and electronic products, there is an important shift in imports away from China and toward other countries in Asia, as well as Mexico, Canada and the EU. Finally, for furniture, imports from all these trading partners declined, but the drop was larger for China.

Conclusion

Our analysis of effective tariff rates and import levels after the policy changes in early 2025 demonstrates three key patterns: First, trading partners faced highly uneven tariff increases, with China experiencing the largest increases and Mexico, Canada and the EU experiencing smaller increases. Second, these differential tariff changes directly corresponded to shifts in import levels, with imports from China declining most dramatically and other U.S. trading partners maintaining more-stable trade levels. Third, the effects varied substantially across product categories. In some cases, imports have shifted, and sales to the U.S. from other countries have increased.