Changes in US tariff policy have major implications for exporters, importers, and consumers worldwide. While tariff schedules identify which products are subject to additional duties, they do not show how markets are responding or how trading partners are affected.
The CGD US Import Prices and Trade Flows Monitor helps fill this gap by presenting timely data on the evolution of US import prices for the products countries export to the US and the value of those exports, in a format suitable for analytical work. Although the Monitor is not designed to establish the causal effects of US tariff policies, it gives researchers, policymakers, and businesses a basis for assessing how trade patterns evolve as US tariff policies change. The CGD US Import Prices and Trade Flows Monitor complements the CGD Tariff Tracker, which provides estimates of the effective tariff rates (ETR) faced by countries around the world—that is, country-specific tariffs adjusted for sector-specific tariffs and product exemptions.
Unlike most dashboards that track aggregate trade flows and import prices for a handful of countries, the CGD US Import Prices and Trade Flows Monitor covers nearly all countries and drills down to the product level, combining US import price changes with country-specific import value changes for specified goods in which the US market matters most to exporters.
The Monitor is designed to help users explore two broad questions.
To inform this question, the Monitor uses detailed import price data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which measures prices at the US border. Since BLS import price indexes exclude tariffs, changes in these prices can help identify whether prices adjust in response to changes in US tariff policy—an important input to broader assessments of who ultimately bears the cost of tariffs. Although US importers legally pay tariffs at the border, the ultimate economic burden depends in part on how prices adjust following their imposition.
The Monitor is built around three key methodological considerations:
-
Country-level price data are limited. BLS provides country-specific import price indexes for only a small number of large economies, and at relatively broad levels of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). The Monitor instead uses BLS import price indexes at the four-digit Harmonized System (HS4) level. There is a trade-off between the two approaches. The HS4 indexes are generally not country-specific, but they provide much greater product detail and can be used for nearly all countries. This is important for the purposes of the Monitor because products within the same broad industry can face different tariff treatment and can also be affected by different market conditions. Using HS4 also allows prices to be matched directly with the country-level trade and tariff data used in the Monitor.
The Monitor therefore assumes most countries are price takers—that is, they are too small to materially influence the overall US import prices of the products they export. Because country-specific price data are generally unavailable, the BLS import price index for each product is used as a proxy for the price movements exporters face in the US. This assumption does not imply that exporters cannot adjust their own prices in response to tariffs or other changes in market conditions. When country-specific unit-value data are available, they can provide additional information on whether these adjustments are taking place.
-
Price changes may reflect factors other than tariffs. Changes in import prices reflect global supply and demand conditions, exchange rates, changes in the composition of imports, and other factors in addition to tariffs. Therefore, the Monitor does not attribute a decline in the BLS price index following a tariff increase as evidence, by itself, that the tariff is being absorbed by exporters.
To help assess the evidence, the Monitor indicates each product's tariff status and, where possible, allows comparisons between tariffed and exempt or partially exempt products within the same broad category. Those comparisons are most useful when the products are sufficiently similar to face similar market conditions.
- The analysis focuses on products for which the US is an important export market. For each country, the Monitor includes products for which the US accounts for a significant share of exports, focusing on products where changes in US trade policy are most likely to matter.
Based on these assumptions, for each country, the Monitor’s price section shows the evolution of US import price indexes for products for which the US is an important export market, distinguishing between tariffed and exempt products based on US tariff measures. The Methodology section provides details on data sources, thresholds, and formulas.
Changes in the value of US imports can provide insights into how trade flows are evolving following actual and anticipated changes in US tariff policy. The Monitor examines these changes at both the country and country-product (HS4) levels. Country-level data provide a broad view of how bilateral trade flows are evolving among trading partners. In contrast, country-product data let users examine how imports of specific products from individual countries change over time. Because import values reflect movements in both prices and quantities, these data complement the Monitor's analysis of import prices. To examine these trends, the Monitor follows cumulative year-on-year changes in the value of US imports using data published by the US Census Bureau.
The Monitor tracks developments rather than establishing a causal analysis of US tariff policy. Changes in import prices and trade flows may reflect tariff effects. But they may also be influenced by other factors, including exchange rate movements, commodity prices, changes in demand, supply chain disruptions, and other policy developments. The Monitor is intended to help identify emerging patterns and inform further analysis, rather than attribute observed changes to tariffs alone.
SELECT A COUNTRY TO ACCESS DATA
We will use the Monitor to publish analysis of how trade patterns evolve as US tariff policies continue to change, and we hope that others will also find it a useful resource for their own analysis and research.
SELECT A COUNTRY TO ACCESS DATA
Methodology
The Monitor uses two complementary measures to monitor how markets are evolving amid changes in US tariff policy. The first tracks, for each country, changes in prices at the US border for products for which the US is an important export destination. The Monitor distinguishes between tariffed products and those that are exempted or partially exempted. Because prices at the US border exclude tariffs, their movements can provide useful information on assessing whether exporters in some countries may bear, at least in part, the cost of tariffs.
The second tracks cumulative year-over-year changes in the value of US imports at both the country and country-product (HS4) levels. Country-level data summarize changes in bilateral trade flows, while country-product data identify how imports of individual products from specific trading partners are evolving. Because import values reflect movements in both prices and quantities, these measures provide a broader picture of how trade flows are evolving following changes in US tariff policy.
Together, these measures provide complementary perspectives on changes in prices and trade patterns. Price data allow users to track how prices faced by foreign exporters evolve, while import values capture changes in bilateral trade flows. The sections below describe how each measure is constructed, how products are selected for analysis, and how products are classified as tariffed or exempt.
Prices
The Monitor uses monthly US import price indexes from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) at the HS4 level. Price series begin in January 2023 or, when data are unavailable, in the earliest month reported by BLS.
To provide a common reference point, each price series is rebased so that March 2025 = 100. After rebasing, values above 100 indicate that US import prices have increased relative to March 2025, while values below 100 indicate that import prices have decreased.
The price section of the Monitor: (a) includes only country-product pairs for which the US is an economically important export market and (b) distinguishes between tariffed, exempted, and partially exempted products.
a. Product selection at the country level
A product is included in a country-specific monitor when the US accounts for at least 10 percent of that country's global exports of that product, based on 2024 trade data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).
The Monitor uses the following formula to estimate the share of a country’s exports of a given product to the US. The numerator is the value of 2024 exports from country c to the US for HS4 product p. The denominator is the value of global exports of the same product from the same country in 2024. Formally:
Where:
- XUSc,p denotes 2024 exports of the HS4 product to the US
- XGlobalc,p denotes 2024 global exports of the HS4 product
Country-product pairs are included whenever this ratio is at least 10 percent.
b. Classification of HS4-level products between tariffed and exempted
US tariff exemptions are defined at the ten-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS10) level, which is the US implementation of the international Harmonized System (HS). Import price indexes, however, are available only at the four-digit Harmonized System (HS4) level. To align these datasets, the Monitor aggregates tariff treatment from HTS10 to HS4 using import-value weights.
An HS4-level product is classified as exempted if at least 50 percent of the US import value of its HTS10-level components is exempted.
For each HS4 product, the exempt share is calculated as the share of import value accounted for by exempt HTS10 products:
Where:
- h represents HTS10 products contained within HS4 category p
- ImportValueh is the import value of HTS10 product h
- Exempth equals 1 if product h is exempt from the tariff and 0 otherwise
The tariffed share is calculated as:
Since tariff treatment is weighted by import value, HS4 products may be fully tariffed, fully exempt, or partially exempt depending on the composition of trade within the category.
Values
The Monitor uses data from the US Census Bureau to report (a) cumulative year-over-year changes in the total value of US merchandise imports from each trading partner and (b) cumulative year-over-year changes in the value of tracked HS4 products imported from each trading partner. The country-level analysis covers all merchandise imports, while the product-level focuses on qualifying HS4 products for which a BLS import price index is also available.
a. Country-level import values
Import values are reported as cumulative year-over-year (YoY) percentage changes, comparing the value of imports accumulated from the beginning of the year through each month with the value recorded over the same period of the previous year:
Where:
- c denotes the country
- t denotes the latest month included in the cumulative period
- m indexes months from January through t
- y denotes the current year, and y−1 the previous year
Using cumulative year-over-year changes reduces the influence of month-to-month volatility and seasonal fluctuations, showing how imports have evolved year-to-date relative to the same period the previous year. Positive values indicate that cumulative imports through month t were higher than during the corresponding period of the previous year, while negative values indicate that they were lower.
b. Country-Product Level Import Values
Import values for individual country-product pairs are reported as cumulative year-over-year (YoY) percentage changes. The calculation is identical to that used for country-level import values but is applied separately to each country c and HS4 product p:
Where:
- c denotes the country
- p denotes the HS4 product
- t denotes the latest month included in the cumulative period
- m indexes months from January through t
- y denotes the current year, and y−1 the previous year
Positive values indicate that cumulative imports of product p from country c through month t exceeded the corresponding period of the previous year, while negative values indicate that they were lower.
Data sources
US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) import price indexes. The Monitor uses the BLS Import Price Index (MPI), which measures changes over time in the prices paid by US importers for goods purchased from abroad. The BLS publishes product-level price indexes using the Harmonized System (HS) classification, allowing the Monitor to follow monthly price movements for individual HS4 product categories. Data are extracted beginning in January 2023 or, when a series begins later, from the earliest month available. To compare products with different base periods, all price indexes are rebased to March 2025 = 100. These indexes provide the primary measure for examining how import prices evolve following changes in US tariff policy.
Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). Annual bilateral trade data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity are used to identify products for which the US market represents a substantial export destination. Using the most recent complete year of data (2024), the Monitor calculates, for every country-product pair, the share of that country's global exports of a given HS4 product destined for the US. Products are included when exports to the US account for at least 10 percent of the country's worldwide exports of that product. This threshold focuses the analysis on products for which changes in US trade policy are most likely to have meaningful implications for exporters.
USA Trade Online data. Because tariff exemptions are defined at the ten-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS10) level while import price indexes are available at the broader HS4 level, the Monitor uses detailed US import data to bridge these classifications. For each country c and HS4 product p, the exemption share is calculated as the value of exempt HTS10 imports divided by the total value of all HTS10 imports within the corresponding HS4 category. This produces a continuous measure of exemption exposure, allowing users to distinguish between HS4 categories that are fully tariffed, partially exempt, or almost entirely exempt.
US Census Bureau. Monthly merchandise import data from the US Census Bureau track both the product-specific and overall value of goods imported from each trading partner over time. Unlike annual trade statistics, these data provide a timely measure of changes in bilateral trade following shifts in US tariff policy. To account for seasonality, the Monitor presents the cumulative year-over-year percentage change in import values. This approach highlights changes in trade flows while minimizing seasonal fluctuations.
US executive orders and tariff exemption schedules. Executive orders that implement US tariff measures and the accompanying exemption schedules determine product-level tariff treatment. These legal documents specify which HTS10 products are excluded from individual tariff actions. The Monitor uses these exemption lists to classify products as tariffed or exempt and to calculate exemption shares within broader HS4 categories. As new executive orders or exemption schedules are issued, the classifications are updated to reflect the current tariff regime.
Citation
Rojas-Suarez, Liliana and Kate Barnes. 2026. US Import Prices and Trade Flows Monitor. Center for Global Development.
