In the United States, the increase in customs duties decided by the new administration since the beginning of 2025 has rekindled inflationary pressures. Estimates by the major institutes differ on the extent to which the new customs duties have already been passed on to consumer prices. However, they do agree on the overall diagnosis: so far, the impact has been concentrated mainly in manufactured goods with a high import content. In the short term, US enterprises have absorbed part of the shock by squeezing their margins and managing inventories, but the pass-through to prices is expected to strengthen as these shock-absorbing mechanisms weaken.

To illustrate the impact of customs duties on consumer prices in the United States, the recent US inflation dynamics can be compared with those observed in Europe by eliminating the methodological differences in the construction of the two indices. Hence, US inflation “in HICP terms” (i.e. calculated with the methodology used in the Eurozone), as reconstituted in this Focus, stood at +2.7% year on year in September 2025, i.e. higher than in the Eurozone (+2.2%), due to price increases concentrated in energy and goods. Indeed, the rise in electricity and gas prices, driven by strong energy demand independent of US customs policy, has revived the contribution of energy to inflation in the United States. At the same time, the prices of goods with a high import content have accelerated since the spring, reflecting the pass-through of the rise in customs duties, which is currently concentrated in these products. In addition, industrial producer prices picked up slightly in the United States, while they stagnated in the Eurozone, attesting to a diffusion effect from the rise in input costs and thus confirming that inflationary pressures could intensify across the Atlantic in the months ahead...