The situation in international trade has become shaky and uncertain.
A year after Trump imposed tariffs on imports from around the world, global trade flows underwent noticeable changes. Which countries benefited from this, and which ones lost?
"Tariffs will make us damn rich," Trump promised as he began his second presidency in January 2025. In April, he attempted to impose tariffs on goods from most countries in the world. Some of the tariffs were later revised—partly due to retaliatory measures from China—and in 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the president's "tariff wars" illegal. However, Trump is not backing down on this issue.
So far, import tariffs have not brought manufacturing back to the U.S., despite Trump's promises, notes Alex Durante, a senior economist at the Washington-based Tax Foundation. "Last year was quite bad for manufacturing and employment. In fact, growing sectors are generally relatively protected from customs tariffs due to exemptions on commodity items such as computers and products related to artificial intelligence," the expert pointed out in a conversation with Deutsche Welle.
One figure that has sharply increased is the revenue from customs tariffs flowing into the U.S. treasury. In 2025, the Treasury collected $287 billion in the form of import tariffs and related taxes—about three times more than in previous years. But studies show that the main burden of costs associated with Trump's tariffs fell on consumers in the U.S. themselves, as they had to pay American importers, not suppliers from other countries.
"The states that benefited the most from the threat of tariffs are those on which tariffs were imposed only at the basic 10 percent rate. This includes Australia and countries in Latin America," says economist Haishi Li from the University of Hong Kong. Countries that replaced exports to the U.S. from China also benefited from Trump's policies, as he imposed unimaginable tariffs on China. But overall, the situation in international trade has become shaky and uncertain, notes Li.
