Imports make up about a quarter of goods supplied to the US economy. From an industry output perspective, around 10% of the price paid for goods in the US is linked to imported intermediate inputs. For certain sectors such as automotive or machinery this is higher. For example, we find that a 20% tariff is could increase prices of automotive goods by 4%.
Import Share
Imports have become more important to the US economy over time. While the overall import share of goods and services sold in the US economy is only 6%, for goods (excluding construction and utilities where inputs and output are largely domestic) it is 25%. At an aggregate level this has grown from 17% in 1997 to 25% in 2008 and stayed more or less constant since then. All sectors have seen growth with the exception of petroleum and oil products.
Some sectors have a high import share, including computers and electronics (53%) or motor vehicles and parts (35%) or apparel (73%).
Current Tariff State of Play
Average effective import tariffs in April were about 4.2% overall and 28.3% for imports from China. Average automotive tariffs sat at 9.6%. May data should be available within the first two weeks of July.
Likely forward tariffs are uncertain. The higher reciprocal tariffs announced on 10 April are delayed until 9 July, but it is unclear what will happen after that. A deal struck between China and US could see lower tariffs in coming months. Two sites do a fine job of tracking the current tariff state of play – Trump 2.0 tariff tracker | Trade Compliance Resource Hub and Trump’s trade war timeline 2.0: An up-to-date guide | PIIE.
Tariffs Affect the Cost of Inputs and the Price of Outputs
Imports tariffs affect the ultimate domestic and export prices, but the impact depends on the mix of domestic and imported intermediate inputs, labour, taxes and the markups that companies can achieve. The figure below shows a simplified view of the sequence of inputs and outputs that take place in a domestic economy.
- Around one third of goods supply is met through imports, but particularly computers, electrical equipment, machinery and apparel are very import dependent. Only about 1% of services are met by imports. In 2024 air and container shipping accounted for 27% and 32% of US import value, respectively. Other vessel traffic and land-based modes were responsible for the balance.
- Goods comprise one third of intermediate inputs across all industries. There are big differences between goods and services industries – goods account for 66% of inputs in other goods producing industries, but only 14% in services industries.
- Value added accounts for about 57% of the total value of products and services produced. For goods producing industry the figure is 45%, while for services it is 61%.
- Goods account for about 24% of output with services (66%) and Government (11%) making up the balance.
- Around 15% of output by from goods producing industries is exported. For services it is about 4%In 2024, Air and container shipping accounted for 31% and 15% of export value, respectively.
All in all, the import share of US industry output is about 10% but has ranged between 8% and 13% since 1997. For some industries the share is much higher. This includes the automotive industry (18%), Machinery and Electrical Equipment (both 11%), petroleum and oil products (18% down from a peak of 40% in 2008).
Understanding the import share of domestic output allows an assessment of the impact of tariffs on overall prices. For example, a 20% automotive tariff would ultimately increase the cost of US automotive output by approximately 4%, provided value added stays constant in $ terms.
Dashboard
The dashboard below shows interactive versions of the above charts that allow assessment of import penetration over time by commodity, supply vs import share and the composition of US product output between 1997 and 2023. The dashboard is primarily based on input-output data compiled by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis as well as our own trade databases. 2024 data is likely to become available in September 2025.
Please feel free to send us an email on [email protected] if you have any questions or require further analysis, particularly with regard to industry specific and transport mode level impacts.