Tariff shock: Regional impacts

  • On April 2, 2025, US President Trump announced the introduction of so-called "reciprocal" tariffs. There is the base rate of 10 percent, which applies to all U.S. trading partners. In addition, there is a country-specific import tariff, which is 10 percent for EU countries, for example. Overall, a minimum tariff rate of 20 percent will apply to imports from the EU for most goods in the future. On April 9, President Trump ordered that only the 10 percent flat rate for all countries except China would be applied for the next 90 days. The already fixed tariffs of 25 percent on steel and aluminum or motor vehicles will remain in place.
  • The USA is an important trading partner of Austria. In 2024, Austrian exports to the USA amounted to 16.2 billion euros, with machinery, automotive industry products and pharmaceutical goods being the main categories. This makes the United States the second most important export partner after Germany.
  • Imports from the USA to Austria amounted to 7.7 billion euros in the previous year, significantly below the export volume to the USA. This corresponds to an Austrian trade surplus of about 8.5 billion euros with the United States. The most important import goods are pharmaceutical products, motor vehicles and optical equipment.
  • Styria, Upper Austria and Vienna are responsible for more than two-thirds of Austrian exports to the USA. Burgenland has by far the lowest export volume. In the two industrial strongholds of Styria and Upper Austria, exports to the USA account for the highest share of regional economic output at 6.4 and 4.7 percent respectively.
  • Overall, we assume that the protectionist measures in the USA will push down domestic economic output by 0.25 percent, with Styria (-0.5 percent) and Upper Austria (-0.4 percent) feeling the effects the most.

Analyse Tariff shock from the USA (PDF)

as of April 2025.

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