A study by the New York Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Columbia University found that, from January 2024 to November 2025, the bulk of the tariff costs was borne by US firms and consumers.
In the first eight months of 2025, 94% of the tariff incidence was borne by the United States, they said.
“In sum, US firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025,” the study found.
Results were published February 12, 2026
Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?
“I am a Tariff Man,” Trump tweeted in 2018. “When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so.”
On the day of his second inauguration, Trump made the announcement in his inaugural address, promising to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. “A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “And we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.”
In August 2015, President Barack Obama's administration officially renamed Mount McKinley to its original Koyukon Athabaskan name, Denali ("the High One"). The mountain, located in Alaska, is the highest peak in North America, with a surveyed elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 meters) above sea level.
“There is a reason President McKinley’s name has served atop the highest peak in North America for more than 100 years, and that is because it is a testament to his great legacy,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
In 1896, gold prospector William Dickey, a Princeton graduate, named North America's tallest peak Mount McKinley to honour then-presidential candidate William McKinley, motivated by the politician's support for the Gold Standard.
The Coinage Act of 1873 made no provision for minting silver coins. As a result, only gold coins circulated widely. This condition sparked a "free-silver" political movement to reintroduce silver coins into circulation.
Against the backdrop of a deep depression, monetary policy was a key issue, pitting "free silver" Democrat William Jennings Bryan against "gold standard" Republican William McKinley.
Walter Harper [Koyukon Athabascan] (c. 1892–1918) was a celebrated Alaska Native figure known as the first person to reach the summit of Denali in 1913.
Born in 1893, Harper was the son of a Koyukon Athabascan mother and an Irish immigrant father who separated when he was two.
He, with more than 300 people, perished in a ship disaster in 1918, near Skagway, Alaska.
Trump's idol was as flawed in economics as he is today
In 1890, McKinley was a Congressman from Ohio. As Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he held this powerful position, which gave him authority over tax and tariff legislation.
He pushed through tariffs to near 50%, but prices rose, and he lost his bid for re-election in November 1890 after his district was gerrymandered by Democrats.
The new tariffs applied to most imported manufactured goods.
He got the nickname "Napoleon of Protection," and the Republicans lost 93 seats in the House
The Panic of 1893 resulted in a severe four-year depression featuring widespread bank failures (often in the West and South), business bankruptcies, and a 25% national unemployment.
It was triggered by a massive bubble in the railroad industry and an outflow of gold.
McKinley was the Governor of Ohio, and he was in peril.
In February 1893, McKinley was hit by the financial collapse of his friend and business associate, Robert Walker, whose Youngstown tin-plate company failed.
McKinley had co-signed and guaranteed loans for Walker over many years without keeping track of the amounts.
When the Panic of 1893 triggered the company's bankruptcy, McKinley was held liable for over $100,000 (equivalent to roughly $3.5 million in 2024).
Wealthy high-level individuals came to his rescue.
McKinley became the 25th president in 1897.
By 1820, Spain had become one of Europe's poorest and least developed societies. Illiteracy characterised three-fourths of the people. Natural resources, such as coal and iron, existed, but the transportation system was rudimentary, with few canals and navigable rivers. (Decline of Spain)
The USS Maine was dispatched to Havana in January 1898 to protect American interests and citizens during a Cuban revolt against Spanish rule.
In mid-February, while anchored in Havana Harbour, Cuba, the battleship was destroyed by a massive explosion that killed approximately 260 to 268 crew members, roughly three-quarters of those on board.
McKinley initially did not blame Spain (An investigation led by Admiral Hyman Rickover concluded in 1976 that the explosions were caused by a coal-bunker fire adjacent to one of the ship’s magazines), but the public, influenced by sensationalist newspapers led by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, immediately blamed Spain for the tragedy despite a lack of evidence.
This became known as "Yellow journalism," which originated from the "Yellow Kid" cartoon strip in a competition between Pulitzer's New York World and Hearst's New York Journal.
McKinley declared war on Spain in April 1898.
The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in December 1898. As a result, Spain lost its control over the remains of its overseas empire: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines Islands, Guam, and other islands.
Spain agreed to sell the Philippines to the United States for the sum of $20 million.
The McKinley Administration also used the war as a pretext to annex the independent state of Hawaii. In 1893, a group of Hawaii-based planters and businessmen led a coup against Queen Liliuokalani and established a new government.
In 1899, President McKinley told a Methodist delegation that he prayed to God for guidance regarding the Philippines after pacing the White House at night. He concluded that returning them to Spain, or letting France/Germany take them, was dishonourable, leaving only annexation to "educate, civilise, and Christianize"
In a 1903 census, there were 7,600,000 Catholics and 650,000 non-Catholics in the Philippines.
Mindanao (in the south) is a diverse, multi-religious region, with approximately 70-75% identifying as Christian (mostly Catholic) and 20-25% as Muslim, often referred to as the Bangsamoro.
Discusssion
“He saw we had a whole lot of excess capacity in manufacturing, and (thought) ‘Why don’t we use that capacity to send our products to the rest of the world?’"
So McKinley shifted from protectionism to thinking about reciprocity and opening up foreign markets,” noted Irwin. “He gave a famous speech laying this out in September 1901. But he was shot the next day and died several days after that. So we’ll never really know what would have happened had he lived and tried to push that through.”
“The expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem."
On encomics, McKinley learned from his mistakes, unlike Trumpf.
In the last decade of the 19th century, America had almost exterminated the native population, the master of the Pacific, South America and neighbouring countries.
And Trump wants Greenland as another coup.
The Gilded Age, Political Corruption and Genocide of Native Americans
(to be continued)
