US Tariffs: How did Trump’s tariffs harm Americans? IMF’s shocking research comes to light

US TariffsCommenting on the impact of US tariffs, former Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and economist Geeta Gopinath said that these results show a disturbing reality for American consumers. Posting on Instead, American buyers increasingly turned to cheaper suppliers, whose products were often of lower quality.

The IMF working paper, written by economists Jabin Aoun, Lorenzo Rotunno and Michel Ruta, analyzed detailed US census data on imports and tariffs between February and December 2025. Researchers examined how tariff increases affected prices, sourcing decisions and product quality of thousands of goods.

The study found that foreign exporters did not reduce prices in response to US tariffs. Looking at the details of product-level data, export prices remained almost the same even after the tariff increase. This meant that the extra costs caused by the tariffs were passed on to importers and buyers in the US. The study found that average tariff rates increased by about 8 percent during the period examined, leading to a decline in imports of about 3.6%.

What does the IMF study say?

After tariff increases, higher-priced suppliers were more likely to leave the US market, while lower-priced suppliers were more likely to enter. According to the study, due to this pattern of changing suppliers, a decline of about 65% was seen in prices. Researchers argue that lower prices do not always mean better value.

Examining data from 2023 and 2024, they found that many of the new suppliers attracting US buyers had low appeal scores. When these quality differences were taken into account, much of the apparent price advantage disappeared. The study estimates that about half of the price declines seen after the 2025 tariffs were actually due to a shift to lower quality suppliers.

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