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.”
According to the Commerce Department report released on February 20, 2026, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos in January: Growth is exploding, Productivity is surging, Investment is soaring...we are the hottest countries anywhere in the world."
New York Times Feb 19, 2026
"U.S. Imports Grew in 2025, as Trump’s Tariffs Reshuffled Global Trade
Data released Thursday by the Census Bureau showed the overall trade deficit with the world narrowed, the result of an expanding trade surplus in services. The trade deficit in goods was the highest on record..."
Growth in manufacturing output also hasn’t yet translated into more jobs. American manufacturers cut more than 80,000 jobs in the past year. The president has ignored any data that does not fit his message. This past week, Mr. Trump had claimed on Truth Social that the trade deficit had “BEEN REDUCED BY 78% BECAUSE OF THE TARIFFS BEING CHARGED TO OTHER COMPANIES AND COUNTRIES. IT WILL GO INTO POSITIVE TERRITORY DURING THIS YEAR, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MANY DECADES.”
The newspaper says "It’s not clear what metrics the president was referring to, and the White House did not clarify."
On Friday, after the slapdown on tariffs by the Supreme Court, Trump signed a temporary 10% duty on imports under the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to set import restrictions for up to 150 days. Later Friday, the Wizard of Tariffs decided to jack them up to 15%.
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).
Trump's net worth in 2024 was $3.9 bellion, until he more than doubled it in 2025.
Wealthy high-level individuals also came to McKinley's 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.
Irishman promotes "Manifest Destiny"
In 1845, the son of an Irish Kerryman, John O'Sullivan (1813-1895), who was born on a British ship off the coast of Gibraltar, was a journalist and diplomat who coined the term "Manifest Destiny" to promote the continent allotted by Providence (God) for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
Texas was annexed in 1845 as a slave state, while the Oregon boundary dispute was settled with Britain in 1846 at the 49th parallel.
Following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), which President Polk initiated over a border dispute, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo added over 500,000 square miles to the US. This included present-day California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of several other Western states.
O'Sullivan's father, John Thomas O'Sullivan, was an Irish-born American sea captain and diplomat who served as a US Consul to the Barbary States in the early 19th century, during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.
The son supported the South during the Civil War.
Kerry, Ireland, became one of the 32 counties of Ireland under the British Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898.
JPMorganChase: Figure 3: Tariff outflows by midsize firms increased sharply in 2025
Disccusion
“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.
