Today December 11, 2025, 12:46 PM
Today December 11, 2025, 12:46 PM
By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) â Sweeping taxes on imports have cost the average American household nearly $1,200 since Donald Trump returned to the White House this year, according to calculations by Democrats on Congressâ Joint Economic Committee.
Using Treasury Department numbers on revenue from tariffs and Goldman Sachs estimates of who ends up paying for them, the Democratsâ report Thursday found that American consumersâ share of the bill came to nearly $159 billion â or $1,198 per household â from February through November.
âThis report shows that (Trumpâs) tariffs have done nothing but drive prices even higher for families,â said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the economic committee. âAt a time when both parties should be working together to lower costs, the presidentâs tax on American families is simply making things more expensive.â
In his second term, Trump has reversed decades of U.S. policy that favored free trade. Heâs imposed double-digit tariffs on almost every country on earth. According to Yale Universityâs Budget Lab, the average U.S. tariff has shot up from 2.4% at the beginning of the year to 16.8%, the highest since 1935.
âPresident Trumpâs tariffs have actually secured trillions in investments to make and hire in America as well as historic trade deals that finally level the playing field for American workers and industries,â said White House Spokesman Kush Desai. âDemocrats spent decades complaining about lopsided trade deals undermining the American working class, and now theyâre complaining about the one president who has done something about it.â
The taxes are paid by importers who typically attempt to pass along the higher costs to their customers.
Democrats did well in elections last month in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere largely because voters blame Trump and the Republicans for the high cost of living, just as theyâd blamed Trumpâs predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for the same thing a year earlier.
Economist Kimberly Clausing of the UCLA School of Law and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, last week told a House subcommittee that Trumpâs tariffs amount to âthe largest tax increase on American consumers in a generation, lowering standards of living for all Americans.â Clausing, a Treasury Department tax official in the Biden administration, has calculated that Trumpâs import taxes âamount to an annual tax increase of about $1,700 for an average household.â
