Evaluation of U.S. Tariff Policy and Its Impact on Imports in the Context of Globalization

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46991/BYSU.G.2026.17.1.092

Keywords:

tariffs, Smoot-Hawley, trade policy, global value chains (GVCs), KOF index, CGE model, GAIA, protectionism, import elasticity

Abstract

This study presents a comparative analysis of U.S. tariff policy in 1930 and 2025, focusing on how the macroeconomic transmission of trade shocks has changed as globalization deepened. We propose a Globalization-Augmented Import Adjustment (GAIA) framework, which embeds a globalization coefficient Geff directly into the structural import demand equation. The adjusted estimate suggests that under 2025 tariff rates, total U.S. import contraction may reach approximately 24%, exceeding the Tax Foundation CGE projection (22%), the IMF forecast (20%), and the WTO trade decline estimate (8-10%). A historical comparison with the Smoot-Hawley episode reveals that despite higher nominal rates in the 1930s, the overall import contraction was more limited owing to shallow integration and the dominance of final-goods trade. These findings imply that globalization functions as a structural multiplier of protectionist measures.

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Author Biographies

  • Mariam Voskanyan

    ORCID: 0000-0002-5417-6648

    Scopus Author ID: 57200635856

    Mariam H. Voskanyan is Doctor of Science in Economics and Professor at the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University (RAU), Yerevan, Armenia. Her research focuses on international trade, macroeconomic modelling, and the economics of transition. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals indexed in Scopus and Web of Science and has participated in international research projects on trade policy and regional economic integration. She is a member of the academic staff of the Faculty of Economics and Business at RAU.

  • Anna Grigoryan, Russian-Armenian University

    Anna T. Grigoryan is a lecturer and PhD student at the Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University (RAU), Yerevan, Armenia. Her research interests include international trade policy, protectionism, and the macroeconomic effects of tariffs in the context of globalization. She is currently pursuing her doctoral research on the amplification mechanisms of trade policy shocks in globally integrated economies.

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Published

2026-06-23

Issue

Vol. 17 No. 1(47) (2026)

Section

International economics

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Copyright (c) 2026 Mariam Voskanyan, Anna Grigoryan

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Voskanyan, M., & GRIGORYAN, A. (2026). Evaluation of U.S. Tariff Policy and Its Impact on Imports in the Context of Globalization. Bulletin of Yerevan University G: Economics, 17(1(47), 92-104. https://doi.org/10.46991/BYSU.G.2026.17.1.092