WASHINGTON (AP) — Tariffs paid by midsize U.S. businesses tripled over the course of past year, new research tied to one of America’s leading banks showed on Thursday — more evidence that President Donald Trump ‘s push to charge higher taxes on imports is causing economic disruption.

The additional taxes have meant that companies that employ a combined 48 million people in the U.S. — the kinds of businesses that Trump had promised to revive — have had to find ways to absorb the new expenseby passing it along to customers in the form of higher prices, employing fewer workers or accepting lower profits.

“That’s a big change in their cost of doing business,” said Chi Mac, business research director of the JPMorganChase Institute, which published the analysis Thursday. “We also see some indications that they may be shifting away from transacting with China and maybe toward some other regions in Asia.”

The research does not say how the additional costs are flowing through the economy, but it indicates that tariffs are being paid by U.S. companies. The study is part of a growing body of economic analyses that counter the administration’s claims that foreigners pay the tariffs.

The JPMorganChase Institute report used payments data to look at businesses that might lack the pricing power of large multinational companies to offset tariffs, but may be small enough to quickly change supply chains to minimize exposure to the tax increases. The companies tended to have revenues between $10 million and $1 billion with fewer than 500 employees, a category known as “middle market.”

The analysis suggests that the Trump administration’s goal of becoming less directly reliant on Chinese manufacturers has been occurring. Payments to China by these companies were 20% below their October 2024 levels, but it’s unclear whether that means China is simply routing its goods through other countries or if supply chains have moved.

The authors of the analysis emphasized in an interview that companies are still adjusting to the tariffs and said they plan to continue studying the issue.

White House spokesman Kush Desai called the analysis “pointless” and said it didn’t “change the fact that President Trump was right.” The study showed that U.S. companies are paying tariffs that the president had previously claimed would be paid by foreign entities.

Trump defended his tariffs during a trip to Georgia on Thursday while touring Coosa Steel, a company involved in steel processing and distribution. The president said he couldn’t believe the Supreme Court would soon decide on the legality of some of his tariffs, given his belief that the taxes were helping U.S. manufacturers.

“The tariffs are the greatest thing to happen to this country,” Trump said.

The president imposed a series of tariffs last year for the ostensible goal of reducing the U.S. trade imbalance with other countries, so that America was not longer importing more than it exports. But trade data published Thursday by the Census Bureau showed that the trade deficit climbed last year by $25.5 billion to $1.24 trillion. The president on Wednesday posted on social media that he expected there would be a trade surplus “during this year.”

The Trump administration has been adamant that the tariffs are a boon for the economy, businesses, and workers. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, lashed out on Wednesday at research by the New York Federal Reserve showing that nearly 90% of the burden for Trump’s tariffs fell on U.S. companies and consumers.

“The paper is an embarrassment,” Hassett told CNBC. “It’s, I think, the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system. The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined.”

Trump increased the average tariff rate to 13% from 2.6% last year, according to the New York Fed researchers. He declared that tariffs on some items such as steel, kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities were in the national security interest of the country. He also declared an economic emergency to bypass Congress and impose a baseline tax on goods from much of the world in April 2025 at an event he called “Liberation Day.”

The high rates provoked a financial market panic, prompting Trump to walk back his rates and then engage in talks with multiple countries that led to a set of new trade frameworks. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on whether Trump surpassed his legal authority by declaring an economic emergency.

Trump was elected in 2024 on his promise to tame inflation, but his tariffs have contributed to voter frustration over affordability. While inflation has not spiked during Trump’s term thus far, hiring slowed sharply and a team of academic economists estimate that consumer prices were roughly 0.8 percentage points higher than they would otherwise be.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s top economist on Wednesday urged that Federal Reserve economists be punished for research last week that showed American companies and consumers paying for nearly all the new tariffs imposed by the White House last year.

“The paper is an embarrassment,” Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council said in an interview on CNBC. “It’s the worst paper I’ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system. The people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined.”

Hassett’s comments represent the latest attack from the Trump administration on the Fed, which has traditionally been independent of day-to-day politics. It also suggests the White House remains sensitive to concerns about rising costs for groceries, housing, and big-ticket items such as furniture and cars, as surveys show Americans remain disgruntled about the economy.

Several other studies have reached similar conclusions as the New York Fed, including one by economists at Harvard and the University of Chicago; a separate report by the Kiel Instituta German think tank; and a report last week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s study, published last weekfound U.S. businesses and consumers are paying nearly 90% of the tariffs that Trump has imposed. Average tariffs on imports have risen from 2.6% at the beginning of last year to 13% at the end of the year, the economists found.

Since U.S. importers pay the tariffs to the U.S. Treasury, the main way overseas companies would bear the burden of the costs — as the Trump administration has said they do — would be if they ate the cost of the tariffs by lowering the price they charged to importers.

The New York Fed research found that foreign exporters have only slightly lowered their prices, by much less than tariffs have increased, leaving U.S. importers bearing the cost of the tariffs.

This isn’t the first time the White House has attacked economists for concluding that Americans are paying the tariffs or will soon do so. Last August, the chief economist at Goldman Sachs projected that Americans would pay an increasing share of the tariffs over time. Trump responded by calling on David Solomon, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, to fire the economist.

It’s true that overall inflation hasn’t risen as much as many economists expected from the tariffs, though that is in part because Trump has delayedreduced, rolled back, or allowed exemptions to many of the duties. But the cost of many goods, including furniture, appliances, and tools has risen in the past year after the duties were imposed.

Both General Motors and Ford, for example, have said they have paid billions of dollars in tariff costs. Last fall GM said it expected to pay $3.5 billion to $4.5 billion in tariffs in 2025, while Ford said it paid $800 million in just the second quarter.

Overall, the government has received nearly $100 billion in tariff revenue since October, more than it received in all of the 2024 budget year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration plans to drop its longtime standard of requiring two rigorous studies to win approval for new drugs, the latest change from Trump administration officials vowing to speed up the availability of certain medical products.

Going forward, the FDA’s “default position” will be to require one study for new drugs and other novel health products, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Macary and a top deputy, Dr. Vinay Prasadwrote in a New England Journal of Medicine piece published Wednesday.

The announcement is the latest example of Makary and his team changing longstanding FDA standards and procedures with the stated goal of slashing bureaucracy and accelerating the availability of new medicines.

Since arriving at the agency last April, Makary has launched a series of directives that he says will shorten FDA reviews, including mandating the use of artificial intelligence by staffers and offering one-month drug assessments for new medications that serve “national interests.”

It contrasts with the FDA’s more restrictive approach to other products, including vaccines.

In their piece published Wednesday, Makary and Prasad state that dropping the two-trial requirement reflects modern advances that have made drug research “increasingly precise and scientific.”

“In this setting, overreliance on two trials no longer makes sense,” they write. “In 2026 there are powerful alternative ways to feel assured that our products help people live longer or better than requiring manufacturers to test them yet again.”

The FDA officials predicted the shift would lead to “a surge in drug development.”

Dr. Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s former drug director, said the change makes sense and reflects the FDA’s decades-long move toward relying on one trial, combined with supporting evidence, for various life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

“The scientific point is well taken that as we move toward greater understanding of biology and disease we don’t need to do two trials all the time,” said Woodcock, who led the FDA’s drug center for about 20 years before retiring in 2024.

The two-study standard for drugs dates to the early 1960s, when Congress passed a law requiring the FDA to review data from “adequate and well-controlled investigations,” before clearing new medications. For decades, the agency interpreted that requirement as meaning at least two studies, preferably with a large number of patients and significant follow-up time.

The reason for requiring the second study was to confirm that the first trial’s results weren’t a fluke and could be reproduced.

But beginning in the 1990s, the FDA increasingly began accepting single studies for the approval of treatments for rare or fatal diseases that companies often struggle to test in large numbers of patients.

Over the last five years, roughly 60% of first-of-a-kind drugs approved each year have been cleared based on a single study. The shift reflects laws passed by Congress that directed regulators to be more flexible when reviewing drugs for serious or hard-to-treat conditions.

Woodcock said the new policy announced Wednesday will mainly impact drugs for common diseases that previously weren’t eligible for reduced testing standards.

“It’s not the cancers and the rare diseases that will be affected by this,” she noted. “The agency has been approving those on a single trial already.”

The latest approach from FDA leadership contrasts with the agency’s recent actions on vaccines, gene therapies and other treatments.

Last week, the FDA’s vaccine division, headed by Prasad, refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new mRNA flu shot, saying its clinical trial was insufficient. Then on Wednesday the agency reversed coursesaying it would review the vaccine after Moderna agreed to conduct an additional study in older people.

Separately, Prasad has rejected a string of experimental gene therapies and biotech drugs, citing the need for additional studies or more definitive evidence. The trend has weighed on the stocks of many biotech companies and clashed with Makary’s public statements promoting the speed and flexibility of the FDA’s reviews.

Woodcock said the drug industry will have to wait and see whether the FDA’s approach to promising experimental therapies changes.

“Implementation will be everything,” she said. “Since the agency’s approach is unclear, and the industry is already baffled, I don’t think this adds any illumination.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.