White House Report: Transshipped Chinese Goods Evade Tariffs, Costing $19-26 Billion and 450,000 Jobs

The White House has released a report stating that a large volume of goods originating mainly from China are being transshipped through third countries to evade US import tariffs, resulting in an estimated annual loss of $19 billion to $26 billion in tariff revenue for the United States.

Drawing on a range of estimates from both the private sector and government sources, the report concludes that the annual value of goods entering the United States through transshipment ranges from $34 billion to $303 billion. Under a "neutral scenario estimate," roughly $75 billion worth of goods enter the US annually through transshipment, costing the country $19 billion to $26 billion in import tariff revenue each year, equivalent to the loss of approximately 450,000 direct and indirect jobs.

US Census Bureau data show that US imports from China fell to $308.7 billion in 2025, a 16-year low, while imports from Mexico and Vietnam have surged sharply in recent years. US Customs and Border Protection is currently deploying artificial intelligence tools to enhance its ability to identify suspected transshipped goods. These machine-learning models analyze container markings, packaging patterns, and X-ray scan images to detect discrepancies between declared and actual cargo.