The issue is not whether tariffs are good or bad, but whether economic research can proceed without fear of reprisal when its findings prove inconvenient.

Kevin Hassett’s recent call to “discipline” Federal Reserve researchers over a New York Fed study on tariffs is not just a political swipe. It is a troubling signal about the growing willingness of policymakers to delegitimize economic analysis they find inconvenient or unsupportive.

Disagreement with research is a normal, healthy part of scientific inquiry. But attempts to intimidate researchers because their findings conflict with a preferred narrative undermine the credibility of policymaking itself. At a moment when trade policy is already generating uncertainty across markets, this kind of rhetoric risks turning economic debate into a loyalty test rather than an evidence-based process.

The New York Fed study in question found that US firms and consumers absorbed the vast majority of tariff costs in 2025, with importers bearing roughly 94 percent of the burden early in the year and still around 86 percent by November. These findings are not outliers. Similar conclusions have been reached by researchers at the Kiel Institute, Harvard University, Yale Budget Lab, and the Congressional Budget Office, all of which point to high pass-through of tariffs into US import prices.

The basic economic mechanism is well understood: when tariffs are imposed, domestic buyers often face higher costs because foreign exporters rarely slash prices enough to offset the duties. Hassett may disagree with the methodology or emphasis, but calling the research “an embarrassment” that would fail a first-semester economics course dismisses a body of evidence that aligns with decades of empirical trade literature.

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