CommentaryInsightsPerspectivesExplainers
Topic
Tariffs & Trade Agreements
7 pieces
Pieces
- PerspectivesStrategic Technology
Technical standards decide admission where a tariff only sets a price, and nothing in the record counts admission
Goods exports to mainland China fell from 13 billion dollars a month in 2022 to 9 in 2025, and imports from 45 to 26. The series record that both legs shrank and attribute the fall to nothing, which is why a rulebook written years earlier cannot be told apart from a duty imposed last quarter.
- PerspectivesTariffs & Trade Agreements
A bilateral arrangement locks in a counterparty, which is the part of a trading position most likely to change
Goods imports from China fell from a monthly average of 45 billion dollars in 2022 to 26 in 2025, and exports to it from 13 to 9, while total imports and exports of goods and services each rose by 0.28 trillion dollars across the same three years. No series on this site describes an arrangement of either kind, so what each locks in is argued here and not measured.
- InsightsTrade & Investment
Goods exports to mainland China are lower in 2025 than in 2020
The monthly average rose to 13 billion dollars in 2021, stayed between 12 and 13 for four years, then fell to 9 in 2025, the lowest of the six readings. Imports from China fell further in the same year, so the gap between the two series is at its narrowest while exports are at their weakest.
- CommentaryTrade & Investment
Trade policy built for containers is missing a trillion dollars of exports
Services exports run at $1.2 trillion on the Bureau of Economic Analysis measure. Tariff schedules, rules of origin and customs lines cannot see them, which means neither the protection nor the retaliation lands where a growing part of the exposure sits.
- CommentaryTrade & Investment
A tariff is borne at home, and the published data closes two of the three answers that say otherwise
Goods imports from China fell from a monthly average of 45 billion dollars in 2022 to 26 in 2025, while imports of goods and services rose from 3.97 trillion to 4.25, so the buying moved rather than came home. No series on this site measures a duty collected or an import price, so whether the exporter cut his own price cannot be tested here at all.
- CommentaryEconomic Security
The import bill is an input cost, not a scoreboard
The United States imported $4.25 trillion of goods and services in 2025. Reading that total as a loss column is what makes a broad tariff look like a collection from abroad rather than a tax on American production.
- CommentaryTrade & Investment
A trade agreement is worth the terms it fixes and not the exports it is credited with
Exports of goods and services rose at every step from 2021 to 2025, from 2.57 trillion dollars to 3.32, and any instrument in force across those years can be credited with a line that was rising regardless. The same window also prices what an agreement actually sells: the broad dollar index moved 8.7 percent between the low and high of six annual averages, and nobody negotiated that.