Key Takeaways
- US imports of smartphones, laptops, and monitors did not decline sharply in 2025 despite US tariffs hitting Chinese production for the first time, as multinational firms quickly sourced from India and Vietnam, where tariffs were exempted for these products.
- US imports of products like clothing and footwear did not reorient as quickly to new foreign sources when Chinese production was hit with additional tariffs, possibly because these products were not exempted from the US tariffs.
- Much of the longer-term shift of US import sourcing toward Taiwan and Mexico reflected the increasing economic importance of imported inputs for the data center buildout for artificial intelligence, and not strictly decoupling supply chains with China.
Body
The reelection of Donald J. Trump as president in 2025 was enormously consequential for US trade policy. Early in the year, his administration announced tariff increases to levels not seen in the United States since the 1930s. Bown provides an initial empirical assessment of the changing nature of product-level sourcing of US imports in the wake of the tariffs Trump imposed in 2018–19 and 2025.
