The relative winners and losers of tariffs
There are no absolute winners in a trade war, but some will fare relatively better than others.
Be they of the April 2, April 9, or other variety, the tariffs imposed by President Trump will damage global activity. In our latest forecasts we project that US import volumes will be around 25% lower than our pre-Trump baseline over the next few years.
But there are some important sub-plots beneath that headline. For example, immediately after Trump’s “liberation day” announcements, Brazilian coffee exporters may have had concerns about the 10% tariff the US imposed, but they may also have glimpsed an opportunity given Vietnam’s producers were slammed with a 46% tariff. That opportunity disappeared on April 9.
Our report is a systematic version of this anecdote, in which we judge the tariff competitiveness of each country relative to the weighted average of its trading partners tariffs across 18 import categories.
What you will learn:
- Based on relative tariff changes alone, we estimate almost all economies will gain US import market share, typically at the expense of China.
- Ironically, other than China, the relative winners list includes the very countries Trump targeted most heavily in his April 2 tariff regime: Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Pakistan and the Philippines.
- Among advanced economies, Singapore, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Germany are the biggest winners.
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