Earlier this month, appliance manufacturing company Whirlpool claimed that some of its competitors are unfairly devaluing U.S. imports at the point of entry to avoid paying high tariff costs, while still maintaining prices at the point of retail sale. In new research, Trade Policy Analyst Jacob Jensen pores through the data to weigh the merits of Whirlpool’s accusation and considers the potential causes of these sudden drops in unit import prices.

Key points:

• Whirlpool alleges that tariff evasion is taking place after noticing a roughly 50–90 percent drop in the per-unit import value of garbage disposals from China, gas ranges from Thailand, and front-load washers from South Korea; others suggest the discrepancy may be due to data-entry errors.
• While there may be evidence pointing to tariff evasion, the data also suggest that other anomalies are taking place that are not unique to the highlighted countries, which may point to a broader data entry concern that deserves further attention.
• This may suggest that there is more widespread tariff evasion taking place or it may point to a broader data entry concern that will negatively impact the ability of policymakers and economic analysts to accurately make decisions.

Read the analysis.