Dennis Jansen shared the recent changes to tariff rates on KBTX News’ Focus at Four on Wednesday, August 6, 2025.
The Trump Administration recently published a new set of tariff rates for trade partner countries. “[These tariffs] are different in that they are a lot higher than those that were put on in January 2025. The average tariff rate, by some estimates, is between 16%-18%. If you think about that compared to our sales tax rate, it’s about double our sales tax rate and these are tariffs put on a wide variety of goods. It seems like the minimum tariff rate imposed on a variety of countries is between 10-15%,” said Jansen.
Some countries, however, have much higher tariff rates. Jansen explained, “Brazil faces a 50% tariff on goods that we buy from them. India…they were scheduled for a 25% tariff rate, today it was announced that they will get another 25% on top of that, so 50% tariff on goods from India.”
Who is paying these tariffs? “Largely, people in the U.S. – either U.S. consumers or U.S. businesses are paying for these imports for goods to either sell them here or export. It is true that these companies producing these goods in foreign countries are paying a small part of these tariffs – they make a little smaller profit, sell fewer goods. But the estimate of tariffs passed from the first Trump Administration is that roughly 90% of tariff revenue came from U.S. firms and U.S. households,” Jansen said.