Tariffs Decongest U.S. Routes

Using satellite vessel‑tracking, researchers show route‑level capacity and utilization losses when U.S.‑bound shipping is disrupted. Their general equilibrium model finds that taxing traffic on a route can reduce congestion there — sometimes offsetting or reversing the usual welfare cost of tariffs — while naval protection of risky routes produces small but measurable GDP gains relative to fiscal cost. — This reframes tariffs from blunt protectionist tools into targeted instruments for managing port and route congestion and trade resilience, changing how policymakers might weigh tariff tradeoffs versus defense spending.