Trump tariffs cause “fundamental change” in global trade

A NEW tariff regime announced last year by the Trump administration has led to “a fundamental change in how trade is executed”, a new report reveals.

The report, The Rise of the Tariff-Optimized Supply Chain: Inside the New Rules of Global Trade, was prepared by Infios, a key player in intelligent supply chains.

Based on analysis of more than one million U.S. customs entries, the report finds tariffs are no longer a predictable cost item.

Rather, they are a live execution variable that companies actively manage through classification, mode selection, routing, warehousing and financial sequencing.

Infios chief executive Ed Auriemma said the implications were significant.

“This research highlights how global trade patterns are evolving and where companies are adjusting routes, transportation modes and execution strategies in response,” Mr Auriemma said.

“Organisations that recognise those shifts early and respond quickly will be best positioned to deliver execution without interruption.”

The report identifies two distinct response phases.

Importers initially experimented with “panic routing,” short-term mode shifts and temporary United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) surges.

The 50%+ duty bracket, which had barely existed before 2025, reportedly spiked sharply before settling at a lower but still higher level.

With urgency seemingly overriding cost discipline, air freight and truck share both rose as speed became the priority.

The behaviours that lasted gradually created a structural and deliberate redesign for global trade.

“What we’re seeing isn’t just a shift in sourcing or supplier mix. It’s a fundamental change in how trade is executed,” said Don Mabry, Infios global trade solutions senior vice president.

“Tariffs have introduced a level of volatility that companies can no longer manage with periodic adjustments or manual processes. Organisations able to sense change early, evaluate options quickly and reconfigure execution paths will outperform those operating within rigid, single-path systems.

“The organisations that treat trade execution as a dynamic discipline, not a back-office function, are the ones gaining a durable competitive advantage.”

Notable findings include:

• Effective duty rates reached 20–80% higher in some categories due to tariff stacking.
• Air freight increased by ~12 percentage points and stayed elevated, while ocean freight declined ~10–12 points and did not rebound, signalling that mode choice is now used as policy-risk insurance, not just cost optimisation.
• Truck freight rose ~8 points, reflecting sustained nearshoring and demand for more stable, shorter supply chains.
• Bonded warehouse usage jumped from ~10 percent to ~16–18 percent of entries and kept climbing, signalling that duty deferral is now mainstream.
• Harmonised tariff schedule (HTS) classification complexity nearly doubled from ~6 to ~11.6 sequences per entry, pushing many organisations beyond what manual compliance workflows can support.
• Shipment value rose ~78 percent while entry counts fell ~7%, indicating consolidation and “smarter shipping,” not a retreat from trade.

According to the report, not all sourcing shifted equally. Consumer goods and light manufacturing diversified away from China; specialty chemicals and industrial components stayed dependency-bound regardless of tariff exposure.

Entirely new trade corridors emerged, however, while others collapsed under policy pressure.

Execution rather than sourcing

Infios’s analysis concludes this is a story of execution rather than sourcing and that in a volatile policy environment, flexibility beats efficiency.

According to the report, companies thriving will be those that can sense change early, evaluate options quickly and reconfigure execution paths.

The report suggests a consistent definition for this new operating model: a tariff-optimised supply chain, which treats duties as a live execution variable, actively managed through classification, mode selection, routing, warehousing and financial sequencing.

Click here to read the full report.