Trump’s Tariffs Have Yet To Force Down Any Major Trade Barriers

President Donald Trump’s tariffs were touted as a tool for winning trade concessions from other countries. Those benefits are so far few and far between.

Tariff proponents, including Trump himself, have argued one of the main benefits of import taxes is their use as leverage: The U.S. can use tariffs, or the threat of them, to get other countries to lower their own tariffs, ease regulations, or remove other trade obstacles to domestic companies.

“We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers and ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers,” Trump said in an April 2 speech that unveiled double-digit “reciprocal” tariffs on multiple U.S. trading partners.

As of Friday, though—more than four months into the trade war—the U.S. had signed a preliminary trade agreement with only one country: Great Britain. The U.K. deal’s details were still being hammered out by negotiators, and promised some increased market access for American companies.

And a deal announced between the U.S. and China only undid some of the harsher trade restrictions the two countries imposed on one another in recent months. There are more trade barriers in place now than there were in February when this all started, experts have noted.

Experts Expect a ‘Multi-Year Process’ for Trade Policy

Tariff critics, including many mainstream economists, say the U.S. has lost more than it has gained so far in the trade war.

Ryan Young, of the libertarian think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a recent commentary noted that China has also been able to exercise leverage using its supply of rare earth minerals, and argued the U.S. is in no better a position than where it started.

Victories for the U.S. may be some time in coming. The lack of firm deals so far underscores the historical trend that trade negotiations are complex and often take many months or even years to finalize.

“Negotiating trade agreements could be a multi-year process, ” said Anthony Rapa, co-chair of the international trade practice at the law firm Blank Rome. “We’re going to get deeper into the summer and deeper into the year before we really know what this starts to look like.”

The administration is actively negotiating with at least 18 other countries, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and those talks could still bear fruit. Vietnam, for instance, has reportedly offered to zero out its own tariffs against American products in exchange for removing the high “reciprocal” tariffs Trump announced in April, which have been delayed by 90 days to allow for negotiations.

Economy Feels the Weight of Not Knowing ‘What the Future Holds’

The tariffs are also meant to boost federal revenue, pay for tax cuts and encourage companies to build factories in the U.S. However, economists say these goals contradict one another, since more domestic manufacturing could weigh on tariff revenue.

Consumers are meanwhile bracing for higher prices as businesses say they plan to pass along the cost of the new import taxes to shoppers—though, according to the latest inflation data, that mostly hasn’t happened yet.

In the meantime, the economy is still working through the effects of raising import taxes to their highest level since the Great Depression. As of June, the government was charging the highest average taxes since 1937, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

Because Trump has announced, rescinded, and paused tariffs so frequently, businesses are uncertain about future policy. That’s forced companies to delay decisions about major investments, according to surveys including one from the the Institute for Supply Management. Many economists are forecasting the tariffs will cause an economic slowdown and an uptick of unemployment later in the year.

“There’s been an impact in terms of business planning, in terms of anticipating the response, in terms of not exactly knowing what the future holds,” Rapa said.