Policy Analyst @CatoTrade. Opinions, likes, and RTs on my own behalf. RT ≠ endorsement.
Washington, DC
Joined September 2017
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Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
An announcement that is as personal as professional:
18 months ago, we started collecting online prices in real time to track how Liberation Day tariffs were feeding into inflation.
A lot has happened since. The BLS commissioner was fired. The longest government shutdown in US history meant CPI wasn’t published for the first time. And the case for an independent measure of inflation became much stronger.
What started as a tariff inflation tracker has since grown into something much bigger:
The Bloomberg Price Project (BPP), our attempt to build the US CPI from the ground up using alternative data.
Today, BPP covers 87% of the CPI basket, across both goods and services (more new data will be added in coming weeks). Every month, we collect millions of prices from card transactions, e-commerce sites, grocery stores, pharmacies, rental listings, corporate data, Bloomberg Terminal market prices and government records. And more data are coming.
The payoff is detail. Official CPI data let you drill down to categories such as “uncooked beef steaks.” BPP goes much deeper — breaking the CPI basket into almost 700 line items, compared with roughly 200 in the official data.
Brought to you by: myself, Troy Durie, Daniel Ripperger-Suhler, Joshua Danial and Scott Johnson from across Bloomberg Economics.
Explore the Bloomberg Price Project at BECO MODELS BPP <GO>, or download the data at ECAN US BPI <GO>.
I believe the paywall on Bloomberg.com is coming down briefly so you can read this without a subscription (but you should subscribe!)
bloomberg.com/graphics/2026-…
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
Protectionism, specifically through high, sweeping tariffs, is not just failing to attract support among voters but has become a political liability for the president’s party.
@alfredcobregon writes: cato.org/blog/high-tariffs-a…
“A senior Mexican official said that every time both sides get close to a deal, the Trump administration brings up something else that it wants.”
Lutnick Throws the Future of U.S.-Mexico Trade Talks Into Further Doubt.
With @GavinBade
wsj.com/economy/trade/lutnic… via @WSJ
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
Smart phones are good case of tariff-induced shifts in trade.
Aggregate imports show a bunch of month to month variation, but on a yearly basis there has been little change.
Under the hood, there has been a massive rotation from #china to #india in sourcing:
- China used to ~ 80% of imports, now 30%
- India used to be under 10%, now 40%
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
chart for the day
Here is HS code 847150
These are basically servers (with chips and other stuff included) that go into a data center.
This one category is about 10% of US imports.
The sources are interesting too...
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
People in🇺🇸🇲🇽often think about cross border investment going south, being Mexico a developing country and the U.S. a developed one. But Mexican investment is increasingly going north. Unknown to many, Mexico's FDI in the U.S. is 40% of that of the U.S., roughly the same in per capita terms, and eight times greater as a share of its GDP.
@SE_mx @CommerceGov @USTradeRep @USEmbassyMEX @EmbamexEUA
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
We are pleased to announce the release of the Cato Supreme Court Review, an annual critique of the Court’s most important decisions from the Term just ended plus a look at the Term ahead.
This Term featured several blockbuster cases that captured the public’s attention.
ow.ly/tc2B50ZP8q2
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
Canada's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports took effect today. A thread with recent analyses of potential impacts based on a variety of metrics.
Share of state's covered exports to Canada tradepartnershipworldwide.su…
Most impacted: Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Vermont
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
New trade data release today:
Big story is the widening of the trade deficit and a continued surge in imports of AI related products
here is a simple, one minute overview of what was in the data
tradewartracker.github.io/st…
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
A new paper finds that exporters bore a higher share of the tariffs than previously estimated. Read more here:
taxfoundation.org/blog/expor…
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
Here's @neilmehrotra and I updated take on tariffs on inflation.
The bottom line: 6 months ago, we argued there was little imprint of tariffs on inflation. Now there is...
New from our @NeilMehrotra & @TradeWarTracker: "Initially delayed, the pass-through of tariffs to consumer prices has arrived." They estimate tariffs now adding up to 0.4 pp of elevated core inflation, similar to the impact of demand for AI technology. bit.ly/4gW8ZzP
ALT An image of a financial report cover titled "Initially delayed, the pass-through of tariffs to consumer prices has arrived." The subtitle notes that by mid-2026, tariffs and AI factors will contribute to elevated core inflation. The date is August 28, 2026. Authors listed are Neil Mehrotra and Michael E. Waugh, with their positions mentioned below their names. A city skyline is faintly visible in the background.
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
The Section 338 tariffs are small, but they're only one small part of the admin's tariff strategy. We estimate new tariffs affect 54 percent of US goods imports in 2026.
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
My response to a very misguided American Affairs essay: Sixty Years of Steel Tariffs Haven’t Worked. More Won’t Either cato.org/blog/sixty-years-st… via @CatoInstitute
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
New: The US auto tariff on Canada is set to drop to 15% (from 25% now) under the deal, per sources.
It will still apply to non-US content only, per sources, so the effective rate would be roughly half that.
Japan and Korea pay 15% now, but with less USMCA compliance red tape.
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
Interesting paper on the counterfactual of the tariffs without the AI boom:
"Absent the investment boom, imports would have fallen by 10 percent and activity would have contracted by 0.7 percent."
nber.org/papers/w35630
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
It's still costly and foolish to have 25% "national security" tariffs on steel and aluminum from a close ally, but the president's walkback here would be good start - economically and politically. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Update:
As we wait for (yet another) eleventh-hour deal to avoid new tariffs—this time, on Canada (again)—here's piece from me for the @CatoInstitute on Section 338: cato.org/blog/next-round-us-…
As we wait for (yet another) eleventh-hour deal to avoid new tariffs—this time, on Canada (again)—here's piece from me for the @CatoInstitute on Section 338: cato.org/blog/next-round-us-…
Alfredo C. Obregón retweeted
Under the guise of protecting and reinvigorating manufacturing industries whose output includes defense and critical infrastructure products, the administration is taxing everyday items, even if the idea that such products pose a threat to the nation’s safety is ludicrous.
