The U.S. imposed duties of $5.28 billion against imports from China through May of 2018, a 3.8 percent increase from the year prior. That’s going to get much bigger.
Data on the U.S. International Trade Commission website is only available for the first five months of the year. That’s before the Trump administration first levied tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods and then followed up with an expanded list of over $200 billion.
The data does capture some of the impact of the tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum producers that were initially put into effect in March. Those new tariffs, in conjunction with increased volumes of trade, have pushed the value of global duties imposed up by 7.5 percent over 2017 levels for the same time period.
