A Year of Tariffs: Looking Back at the Global Impact

One of the biggest financial stories of the past year was the tariff war initiated by the United States. Despite shocks to global supply chains and economies, many nations weathered the storm surprisingly well.

A new report, One Year On: Tariff Impacts on U.S. Imports and What They Mean for Treasury and Payments, examines the impact of these tariffs in both the short and long term. The world adapted far faster than expected, minimizing the economic fallout. “If you told me what the tariff impacts could be, that the changes were going to be as fast and as severe as they were, I don’t think I would have believed you,” said Hugh Thomas, Lead Analyst of Commercial and Enterprise Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research.

Ready for the Shock

Tariff shocks don’t act like a single policy change—they ripple through economies as a mix of contractions, redirections, exemptions, and occasional miscommunication-driven surges across countries and commodities. Predicting the response was never straightforward.

Some analysts expected supply chains to either absorb the tariffs or find workarounds. That largely didn’t happen. Low-margin imports like electronics, toys, and apparel remained largely stable, even as tariff-driven costs rose.

“I was surprised both by the speed and the tight correlation between a tariff being introduced and the use of imports going down,” said Thomas.

The nations best positioned to benefit from this instability were those prepared for trade disruption. As prices surged on Chinese imports, for example, Vietnam quickly consolidated toy and apparel production, capturing new market share.

“Vietnam has been tooling up to do this for a while now,” Thomas said. “When the Chinese tariffs went up, Vietnam was ready as a quick substitute or last stop for the United States or one of the other supply chain providers in Asia. Those volumes are there to stay.”

A Lack of Chaos

The key lesson: supply chains adjust rather than simply pass costs along. Availability of goods remained mostly unaffected, highlighting supply chain agility in 2026.

“If this had happened 15 years ago, there would have been chaos,” Thomas said. “There would not have been enough toys in the shopping centers during Christmas. The world has changed in terms of last-mile shipping capabilities and graded data around the provenance of goods and their substitutes.

“It says something that you can have capricious tariff regimes being instituted, and we’re not seeing lineups at the electronics store,” he said. “We’ve had super-lean supply chains, so there hasn’t been a lot of slack in the system. Despite these completely non market-driven shifts, we still have the same goods available a year down the road.”

Some Changes Are Here for Good

Nevertheless, the tariffs left lasting changes. Many players realized they weren’t as indispensable as assumed, as substitutes arose almost immediately.

Going forward, supply chains may incorporate a “tariff risk” component, particularly long, complex sectors like automotive and aerospace. Governments are also reassessing regulatory risks as they encourage domestic manufacturing.

“You can see them looking to strike trade deals,” said Thomas. “But they will also try to message the durability of their trade deals and how much they can be relied upon not to throw up tariff barriers or regulatory intervention.”

A Lesson from Swiss Gold

Other lessons emerged from unexpected corners. In July 2025, the U.S. purchased $6 billion in Swiss gold in single month—compared with under $2 billion the year prior.

That was the result of an offhand remark, a poorly communicated intention in terms of tariffs. It became one of the largest trade swings of the year.

“That’s very telling in terms of the need for an efficient market and to have your intentions communicated effectively, because that was really just a broken telephone situation,” Thomas said. “It resulted in a pretty big supply chain inefficiency as well, if you’re talking about tripling your bullion purchasein a year. Some people probably got left holding more inventory than they particularly wanted to as a consequence of that.”

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Timing also mattered in negotiations. The UK, now outside the EU, lost out on pharmaceutical contracts as it lagged behind EU trade agreements, which instead benefited Ireland, Spain, and France.

“As you’re thinking about where the impacts are going to be, you want to think, what if the next guy who competes with me on a supply chain gets the deal done faster?” said Thomas. “A lot of people who manage payments and transaction banking for UK pharmas are probably looking at a big glut of inventory on hand and a cash gap as a consequence of the fact that they were slower negotiating pharma tariffs than the broader U.S.”

On the other hand, some countries are slow-walking their trade negotiations, knowing that there’s every possibility that the tariffs will be reined in. Canada and Mexico are taking a measured approach, knowing that the USMCA free trade agreement is back on the table.

The Ultimate Stress Test

Even as tariff effects recede, commercial payments players see opportunities to offer solutions. Businesses will spend the comping year untangling prior adjustments, but they now understand there’s always a path through disruption.

Perhaps the clearest takeaway from the past year is the resilience of global trade.

“If ever you wanted to run a stress test on the global supply chain,” Thomas said, “I don’t know that you could come up with one better than this short of a world war.”

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Tags: B2B PaymentsChinaCommercial PaymentsTariffVietnam