About What Did Trump Cost Me?
This tool gives you a personal, data-driven estimate of how the 2025–2026 U.S. tariff escalation affected the prices of products you actually bought — based on your own Amazon and Target order history. It is not a political statement; it is a calculation. The name is provocative, the methodology is neutral.
How It Works
Upload your purchase history CSVs, review the auto-detected product categories, and the tool estimates the tariff cost that was likely embedded in your prices. The three-step process is entirely private — your files are processed in your browser session and never stored on our servers.
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1Upload your order history Provide your Amazon
Retail.OrderHistory.1.csv(from Amazon's Data Request tool) and/or a Target CSV filled in from our downloadable template. At least one source is required. -
2Review & confirm product categories Each item is automatically classified into one of 22 product categories using keyword matching against the item description and any retailer-provided category. Items that can't be classified confidently are flagged for your review. You can correct any category via a dropdown.
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3See your results The tool calculates your total tariff-exposed spend and a low-to-high estimate of the tariff cost embedded in those purchases. Results are broken down by category, by month, and by individual item — and can be exported as a PDF or shared on social media.
The 2025 Tariff Timeline
All tariff data used in this tool is hand-authored from published U.S. executive orders and White House trade announcements. No live API is queried — this keeps the calculations auditable and reproducible. The relevant events are:
| Effective Date | Origin | Rate | Scope & Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 4, 2025 | China | +10% | Additional tariff on all Chinese goods. Justified under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) citing fentanyl trafficking. |
| Mar 4, 2025 | China | +20% | Rate raised from +10% to +20% via a second executive order under the same fentanyl justification. Replaces the February rate. |
| Apr 5, 2025 | All countries | +10% | "Liberation Day" baseline universal tariff. Applied to all imported goods from all trading partners, stacked on top of existing tariffs. |
| Apr 9, 2025 | China | +145% | Escalation after China retaliated. The combined effective tariff rate on Chinese goods reached approximately 145% additional duty. Replaces the March +20% China rate for Chinese-origin products. |
| Apr 11, 2025 | China | 20% (electronics) | Temporary exclusion for consumer electronics (smartphones, tablets, computers, laptops, TVs). Chinese-origin electronics revert to a lower ~20% additional rate. This exclusion may be reversed — items purchased Apr 5–10 are modeled with uncertainty. |
How the Estimate Is Calculated
Because we don't know the precise country of origin for any individual product, we use published U.S. trade statistics to assign each product category a China origin probability — the share of U.S. imports in that category that originate from China. This is the best available proxy for the likelihood that a given purchase was manufactured in China.
The estimate is then calculated in three steps:
For purchases made before April 5, 2025, no tariff exposure is calculated — the tariff periods in scope began on that date. Items with a purchase date before Feb 4, 2025 have zero exposure regardless of category.
For the electronics exclusion period (Apr 11, 2025 onward), smartphones, computers, and TVs are modeled at a 20% China rate rather than 145%. Items in those categories purchased Apr 5–10 are flagged with a note indicating the exclusion uncertainty.
The 22 Product Categories
Products are classified into one of 22 fixed categories. Each category has an assigned China origin probability derived from U.S. Census Bureau and USITC trade statistics. Higher probabilities indicate a greater share of that category's imports arriving from China.
Confidence Levels
Each item in your results carries a confidence indicator reflecting how reliably it was classified. This affects the displayed estimate's trustworthiness, not the formula itself.
| Level | Meaning | How to improve |
|---|---|---|
| High | The retailer provided a product category in the source data, which was mapped directly to a known category. This is the most reliable classification path. | No action needed. |
| Medium | No retailer category was provided; the category was inferred by matching keywords in the product description against known keyword lists. | Review and correct on the Review page if the auto-detected category looks wrong. |
| Low | The item could not be confidently classified and was assigned to "Other / Unknown." No tariff exposure is calculated for this item unless you reassign it to a real category. | Open the Review page, find amber-highlighted rows, and select the correct category from the dropdown. |
Data Sources
Tariff periods and rates are hand-authored from published executive orders, White House press releases, and USTR Federal Register notices. The static dataset covers Feb 4, 2025 through the current known state of the tariff schedule.
Category-level China origin probabilities are derived from U.S. Census Bureau USA Trade Online data and USITC import statistics, representing the share of U.S. imports in each category originating from China for 2023–2024.
Estimated tariff refund figures for Target and other retailers are sourced from a 2025 CNBC report on retailers expected to benefit from tariff reclassifications. These are estimates and not confirmed financial outcomes.
Processed entirely client-side in your browser session. No purchase data is transmitted to or stored on our servers beyond what is needed to return your results. Session data is cleared when you close your browser tab.
Limitations & What This Tool Cannot Tell You
- Product origin is unknown. We use category-level trade statistics as a proxy. Your specific LEGO set may have been made in Denmark; your specific USB cable almost certainly came from China. We can't tell the difference.
- Retailer pass-through varies. Not all tariff costs reach consumers. Some retailers absorb costs, some pass them fully. The low/high range captures this uncertainty.
- Tariffs change. The schedule encoded here reflects publicly announced policies as of the data authoring date. Future changes are not reflected until the tariff table is updated.
- The electronics exclusion is provisional. The Apr 11 electronics exclusion may be modified or reversed. Results for electronics purchased after Apr 11, 2025 are modeled at the exclusion rate but flagged accordingly.
- Not all price increases are tariff-driven. Retailers may raise prices for reasons unrelated to tariffs (supply chain costs, inflation, demand). This tool cannot isolate tariff-specific price changes from the overall price you paid.