PIIE's most read pieces of 2025

Every year, I write this roundup, and every year, I start it with some variation of "what a year it's been!"

Reader, what a year 2025 has been.

Here are our most read pieces published this year. We are as surprised as you that it was not all about tariffs.

1. Trump's trade war timeline 2.0: An up-to-date guide
   
   A project so nice, we had to do it twice. 
   
   Just like during the first Trump administration, Chad P. Bown regularly updates this timeline with notable trade announcements and actions by the United States and other countries with links to government documents, data, and PIIE analysis. 
    
2. Trump's tariff revenue tracker: How much is the US collecting? Which imports are hit?
   
   We love our trackers. This monthly tracker by Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Ye Zhang measures US tariff revenue collected over time by product category and country. The data show delays in costs paid by US businesses and which costs may get passed to customers over time. President Donald Trump claims that tariffs can make an outsize fiscal contribution. The tracker also compares tariff revenue since January 2025 with the size of the projected federal budget deficit.
   
   Also check out the US-China Trade War Tariffs: An Up-to-Date Chart launched by Chad P. Bown in 2019, still being updated. 
    
3. Trump's threatened tariffs projected to damage economies of US, Canada, Mexico, and China
   
   Based on a November 2024 Truth Social post by Trump threatening 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada and an additional 10 percent on China, before he was even inaugurated, Warwick J. McKibbin and Marcus Noland projected that such tariffs would damage all the economies involved, including the US economy.
    
4. Trump's tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China would cost the typical US household over $1,200 a year
   
   Examining Trump's planned 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and 10 percent on Canada, Kimberly Clausing and Mary E. Lovely estimated that the direct cost of these actions to the typical, or median, US household would be a tax increase of more than $1,200 a year.
    
5. Argentina is in crisis. A US rescue may invite new problems.
   
   Monica de Bolle explained how despite initial market optimism following Argentina's president Javier Milei's fiscal and institutional reforms of 2024, the country remains hostage to shifting investor sentiment because of its heavy reliance on the US dollar. Full dollarization, if it happens, would weaken the International Monetary Fund's hand, could create conditions for regional confrontation with China, and would be a one-way street: Once a country adopts a currency other than its own, it faces difficulties going back. 
    
6. The future of the USMCA: What's next for trade relations with Canada and Mexico?
   
   The US-Mexico-Canada Agreement will be up for review in 2026. This guide by Julieta Contreras, Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Ye Zhang explains why the USMCA remains at the core of the three countries' relationship, what's at stake in many different aspects of their interdependence, and possible paths forward for negotiators. They also provide cross-border trade details for specific sectors including lumber, dairy, and energy. 
    
7. Trump's Five Percent Doctrine and NATO Defense Spending
   
   Trump's call for NATO members to boost military spending to 5 percent of GDP isn't the best solution for a more collective defense. Rather, it could catalyze an arms race with near-peer competitors or create incentives for adversaries to strike before expenditures are made, Cullen S. Hendrix explained.
    
8. Who is paying for Trump's tariffs? So far, it's US businesses.
   
   Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Ye Zhang concluded in September that at least through July 2025, US businesses have absorbed most of the tariff costs, not foreign sellers, through compressed spreads between the cost of imported goods paid by the firms and the selling prices they received.
    
9. The global economic effects of Trump's 2025 tariffs
   
   Warwick J. McKibbin, Marcus Noland, and Geoffrey Shuetrim modeled several different scenarios based on Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs and various subsequent announcements. They projected that the tariffs would result in slower US economic growth through the coming decade and higher inflation this year than without them, and the effects would worsen if other countries retaliate by imposing their own matching tariffs on American goods.
   
   The harm to US employment and income would deepen further if the higher US risk premium lasts, driving capital flows away from the United States to other countries. Conversely, increased net capital inflows into most other countries would lower their interest rates, stimulate investment, and cushion the impact of the US tariffs on their economies. The exceptions are Mexico and Canada, which would suffer a rise in investment risk.
    
10. Now is the time for Eurobonds: A specific proposal
    
    In May, Olivier Blanchard and Ángel Ubide proposed a pathway for Eurobonds by Europe replacing a portion of national bonds worth up to 25 percent of GDP with senior Eurobonds. Doing so would defragment European sovereign debt markets and reduce the cost of funding European public debt and, by extension, European private capital, while not creating risk sharing or a new EU mandate.