Receipt
Department of State
.@POTUS: "Every prediction the critics made about our tariff policy has failed to materialize. The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers, that they're paid by foreign nations and middlemen."
Department of State (@StateDept)
.@POTUS: "Every prediction the critics made about our tariff policy has failed to materialize. The evidence shows overwhelmingly that the tariffs are not paid by American consumers, that they're paid by foreign nations and middlemen."
Verdict: Not true.
Cavallo, Llamas and Vazquez, "Tracking the Short-Run Price Impact of U.S. Tariffs" (NBER Working Paper w34496, November 2025), found tariff costs "were gradually but steadily transmitted to U.S. consumers." Yale Budget Lab, "Short-Run Effects of 2025 Tariffs So Far" (2 September 2025), found "foreign producers are not absorbing much if any of the US tariffs." Under 19 CFR 141.1 the duty is a debt the US importer owes. All of this was public before the 13 Jan 2026 post.
- Period checked
- 2025 tariffs, using evidence published through 13 Jan 2026, compared with the 13 Jan 2026 post
- Data pulled
- Primary source
- https://www.nber.org/papers/w34496
- Yale Budget Lab, "Short-Run Effects of 2025 Tariffs So Far," 2 Sep 2025
- https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/short-run-effects-2025-tariffs-so-far
- Yale Budget Lab, "Short-Run Effects of 2025 Tariffs So Far" (archived 3 Sep 2025)
- https://web.archive.org/web/20250903135800/https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/short-run-effects-2025-tariffs-so-far
- 19 CFR 141.1(b)(1), "Personal debt of importer" (eCFR)
- https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-141/subpart-A/section-141.1
- 19 CFR 141.1(b)(1) (archived)
- https://web.archive.org/web/20250225113213/https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-19/chapter-I/part-141/subpart-A/section-141.1
- Official transcript: Remarks to the Detroit Economic Club, 13 Jan 2026 (govinfo DCPD-202600020)
- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-202600020/html/DCPD-202600020.htm
- Later evidence: Amiti, Heise and Weinstein, "The Anatomy of Tariff Pass-Through into Consumer Prices," NY Fed Staff Report 1201, Aug 2026 (revised Sep 2026): about 26% of the tariff increase reached consumer prices
- https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr1201
- Our post on X
- https://x.com/NotTrueBot/status/2111620073102123474
- Date