特朗普的關稅為何沒有產生更大的影響？(1/2)

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Why Haven’t Trump’s Tariffs Had a Bigger Impact? (1/2)

Steep import taxes have raised prices and affected U.S. businesses, but not quite as much as expected. A new report offers some reasons.

By Ana Swanson

Jan. 3, 2026

President Trump raised the taxes that the United States charges on imports last year to levels not seen in a century.

Prices of goods have increased as a result, and businesses that depend on imported products and supplies have struggled, with some closing their doors. Still, the effects have not been felt as strongly as some experts predicted after early April when Mr. Trump announced double-digit tariffs on imports from countries worldwide.

A new working paper from economists at Harvard and the University of Chicago helps explain why. It shows that the tariff rate importers have paid is significantly lower than the tariff figures that Mr. Trump announced. The reasons include exemptions for certain countries and industries, rates that were lowered for some goods by the time they arrived in the U.S. and evasion of the rules by some companies.

By analyzing the government’s tariff revenue and the value of imports, the economists concluded that the actual U.S. tariff rate was 14.1 percent at the end of September.

The figure is about half the tariff rate that the administration had officially announced. The average trade-weighted tariff rate for the United States was nominally 27.4 percent in September, the authors estimated, down from a peak of 32.8 percent in April.

“The actual tariffs are much lower than what were announced, and that is one of the reasons why the effects have not been as big as feared,” said Gita Gopinath, a Harvard economist and former first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

One factor was an exemption for products that were on boats en route to the United States when tariffs were announced. Shipping goods by ocean to U.S. ports often takes weeks, meaning the tariffs that businesses paid rose more slowly than what Mr. Trump announced throughout the year.

The exemptions for products and countries included semiconductors and some products containing them, a move widely seen as a favor to tech executives. Though officials said they would announce more tariffs on chips and electronics, those have not come.

As a result, companies paid an actual tariff rate of 9 percent on chips brought into the United States, the authors calculated, far below the tariff level for other commodities. And exports from places that make a lot of semiconductors, like Taiwan, faced a far lower actual rate (8 percent) than the official one (28 percent).

Canada and Mexico also received significant exemptions from the nominally high tariffs that Mr. Trump put on them last year. Many goods that are mostly made in North America qualify for zero tariffs under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Mr. Trump signed in his first term.

(to be continued)

Translation

特朗普的關稅為何沒有產生更大的影響？(1/2)

高額進口關稅推高了物價，影響了美國企業，但其影響程度卻不如預期。一份新的報告對此給了一些解釋。

去年，特朗普總統將美國對進口商品徵收的關稅提高到了百年來未有過的高水平。

商品價格因此上漲，依賴進口產品和物資的企業舉步維艱，有些企業甚至倒閉。然而，其影響並沒有像一些專家在4月初特朗普宣布對全球進口商品加徵兩位數關稅後預測的那樣強烈。

哈佛大學和芝加哥大學的經濟學家撰寫的一份新的工作報告解釋了其中的原因。報告顯示，進口商實際支付的關稅稅率遠低於特朗普宣佈的稅率。原因包括某些國家和行業的豁免、部分商品在抵達美國時稅率有所降低，以及一些公司規避了相關規定。

經濟學家透過分析政府的關稅收入和進口額，得出結論：截至9月底，美國的實際關稅稅率為14.1%。

這一數字約為政府官方公佈關稅稅率的一半。作者估計，9月美國貿易加權平均關稅稅率名義上為27.4%，低於4月32.8%的高峰。

哈佛大學經濟學家、國際貨幣基金組織前第一副總裁Gita Gopinath表示:「實際關稅遠低於公佈的水平，這也是其影響沒有預期那麼大的原因之一」。

其中一個原因是，關稅宣佈時，正在運往美國的船隻上的貨物獲得了豁免。海運貨物到美國港口通常需要數週時間，這意味著企業實際支付的關稅提高速度比特朗普年內宣佈的速度要慢。

此次豁免的產品和國家包括半導體及有這類部件的製品，此舉普遍被視為對科技公司高階主管的優待。儘管官員表示將宣佈對晶片和電子產品加徵更多關稅，但至今仍未出台。

因此，據作者計算企業實際支付的晶片進口關稅稅率為9%，遠低於其他商品的關稅水準。而來自台灣等半導體生產大國的出口產品，實際關稅稅率（8%）也遠低於官方稅率（28%）。

加拿大和墨西哥也獲得了特朗普去年對其徵收的名義高額關稅的顯著豁免。許多主要產自北美的商品, 根據特朗普在第一任期內簽署的《美墨加協定》可享有零關稅待遇。

（待續）

Note:

1. The average trade-weighted tariff rate (平均貿易加權關稅率) for the United States is the average U.S. import tariff rate, where each tariff is weighted by the share of total U.S. imports to which it applies. In plain-language explanation it means that instead of simply averaging all tariff rates equally, this measure gives more importance to tariffs applied to goods the U.S. imports a lot, and less importance to tariffs on rarely imported goods. (ChatGPT)