Given the steady cadence of new trade deals and tariff threats, it’s nearly impossible to articulate the full scope of the U.S. trade war. But even among the whirlwind, data is starting to reveal at least part of the story. In short, it’s not good, worst most of all for the U.S.
During the February Port of Los Angeles press briefing on Feb. 17, Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, and Chad Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, attempted to break down the implications for logistics, relationships and productivity.
Here, Seroka and Bown’s takeaways as they relate to how U.S. policy has affected product flow in and out of the country, the major trade-related milestones already on the calendar for 2026 and how to calculate the impact thus far.
Since April, the consistent message from the Trump Administration had been that U.S. trading partners would bear the brunt of the tariff increases. Recent reports say otherwise.
“The evidence so far, at least through, say, the first eight or nine months of 2025 is that almost 100% of the tariffs are being paid by somebody in the United States, but it is somewhat surprising that we haven’t seen a bigger impact on consumer prices,” Bown said.
Though retail prices might not be through the roof, he said that just means companies are either absorbing the increases or producing less. Additionally, U.S. buyers have changed their buying patterns and switched up their sourcing to mitigate impacts. Ultimately how the trade war factors into other issues like the job market is unknown. “It’s still something that even economists are trying to figure out,” he said.
What the numbers do show is that trade between the U.S. and China, in particular, has slowed. By Seroka’s estimates, China used to represent 60% of goods entering the Port of Los Angeles. Now it’s down to 40%. And exports from the U.S. to China “look dismal” across the country. Unlike suppliers in other production countries that have offered U.S. buyers discounts to remain cost competitive, Chinese vendors have not done so, Bown said. The result is fewer deals overall. “There’s a lot of potential transactions out there that, because of the tariffs, are no longer profitable, and so the two sides say we’re just not going to do it,” he said.
And the costs aren’t just about dollars and cents. Bown said the distraction created by these policies—and policy changes—must be factored in as well.
“They generate incredible uncertainty for businesses. The companies and their employees have to spend so much time running around trying to figure out how to source something differently, what the latest policies are, how they’re being adjusted,” he said. “That’s just taking time and energy away from companies being able to focus on what it is that they want to do best, which is to create new products, to satisfy their customers and to make sure that they’re happy.”
While Bown said one could argue that some tariffs may legitimately contribute to boosting U.S. resilience and national security, by and large “a lot of them don’t necessarily make a whole lot of economic sense.”
What’s next
With so much happening around trade on a daily basis, it can be easy to become overwhelmed. To help cut through the noise, Bown outlined three developments on the horizon that could have major consequences.
The first could take place as early as April. The potential meeting between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jingping could have major consequences. “In the past, when President Trump and Xi got together, there tended to be deals. And so that’s what folks are waiting for this time, is there going to be some sort of new deal that might alter the trajectory of both US trade policy, but also potentially Chinese trade policy as well?” he said.
Next, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade talks are set for July. Billed as just a review, the U.S. could have something more major in mind, like even walking away from the deal altogether. “We’ve had a lot of friction with Canada in the first year of this administration. So, I think watching how all of that plays out over the course of 2026 is going to be important too,” Bown said.
Finally, he pointed to the then-pending Supreme Court decision on the lawfulness of the tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). His prediction for if they were to get struck down: “chaos.”
While it’s too soon to know the scope of any havoc that might follow Friday’s 6-3 decision ruling the IEEPA tariffs unlawful, the administration had already indicated that tariffs are not going away.
The question that’s on everyone’s minds now is what happens to the billions the government has collected so far? Bown said it will be interesting to see if and how that tariff revenue would get refunded, both to businesses and consumers. “The lawyers that I’ve talked to have basically said, ‘buckle up,’” he said.
While those are the major moments that could impact trade in 2026 and beyond, thus far the Trump administration has shown that things can change at any moment, which in and of itself makes long-term planning impossible. “That horizon of planning that CEOs have talked about, the American Association of Supply Chain Management [said in] a recent survey is about six months and anything longer than that… it’s worthless, because if something comes out or another policy changes, here we go again,” Seroka stated.
