A year after Liberation Day, tariffs haven’t led to a manufacturing renaissance in the US, new data shows.
Consulting firm AT Kearney found in its annual study of manufacturing and import data that companies imported more into the US than they exported last year. As a result, the firm’s reshoring index remained in negative territory in 2025, though it improved slightly from the year before.
The finding challenges one of President Donald Trump’s reasons for enacting tariffs — namely, that the duties would incentivize companies to move more manufacturing to the US after decades of outsourcing it to countries such as China.
Manufactured goods and imports brought into the US rose 4.6% to $2.98 trillion in 2025, according to AT Kearney’s report.
The report also found that imports from China dropped by around one-third last year. Instead of moving to the US, though, production lines for those products moved from China to other countries. Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam, which faced lower tariffs than China, posted the largest increase in import volumes after Liberation Day, the report found.
Rising imports in product categories such as computers and electronics, and apparel and accessories, drove the overall trend toward offshoring, AT Kearney partner and lead author Patrick Van den Bossche said.
“Tariffs didn’t seem to drive significant near-term increases in reshoring or reduce America’s total import dependence,” the report said.
Trump’s tariffs have also generated less tax revenue for the federal government than expected, the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan think tank, found earlier this month. The government is paying back much of the tariff revenue it has collected, as companies from GM to FedEx seek refunds on imports.
Another study published in January by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank, found from shipment records that US consumers and importers paid the brunt of Trump’s tariffs. Trump has said the tariffs would lead to more competition and lower prices for shoppers.
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