Section 301 forced-labor tariffs leave our inflation outlook unchanged: U.S. Data Pulse: Tariffs and inflation | North America

Research evidence excerpt

Section 301 forced-labor tariffs leave our inflation outlook unchanged: U.S. Data Pulse: Tariffs and inflation | North America

Update

July 24, 2026 02:26 PM GMT

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLCMU.S. Data Pulse: Tariffs and inflation | North Michael T Gapen

America Chief US Economist

Michael.Gapen@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-0571

Sam D Coffin

EconomistSection 301 forced-labor tariffs Sam.Coffin@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-4630

Diego Anzoategui

Economistleave our inflation outlook Diego.Anzoategui@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-8573

Arunima Sinha

Global Economistunchanged Arunima.Sinha@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-4125

Heather Berger

Economist

Heather.Berger@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-2296

The inflation implications of the final forced-labor Section 301 action appear Lingdi Xu

limited. The new duties took effect as the temporary Section 122 tariffs expired, Economist

Lingdi.Xu@morganstanley.com +1 212 761-2957

reversing a temporary decline in the effective tariff rate and bringing the overall

tariff burden back to roughly where it stood at the start of the year. The resulting

increase of about 2pp in the effective tariff rate is consistent with both our

expectations and our current inflation forecast. As a result, we are not making any

changes to our inflation outlook in response to this announcement. We continue to

expect tariffs to add roughly 70bp to PCE inflation on a cumulative basis, with

the bulk of that impact already realized.

Our tariff pass-through tracker suggests that approximately 62bp of cumulative

inflationary pressure has already materialized, leaving us only modestly below the

endpoint embedded in our forecast. Importantly, our estimate of realized pass-

through has remained broadly stable since February, indicating that the inflation