American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis

“The empirical pass-through of 2025 tariff increases to US consumer prices is approximately 90 percent.”

The standard economic model says tariffs are taxes on the country imposing them, paid by that country’s consumers. The Kiel Institute crunched the receipts and confirmed the model. American consumers paid the tariffs, not Chinese factories. The talking point that foreign exporters absorb the cost has been wrong every time it has been tested. Anyone repeating it now is either lying or has not read a paper since 1985.