IN Brief:
- Infios has published research on the tariff-optimised supply chain.
- The analysis covers more than one million US customs entries and year-over-year trade execution shifts.
- The findings show changes in routing, mode selection, bonded warehousing, HTS complexity, and shipment consolidation.
Infios has published new research showing how tariffs are becoming a live execution variable inside global supply chains, changing how companies route freight, select transport modes, classify goods, use bonded warehousing, and sequence financial exposure.
The report, The rise of the tariff-optimised supply chain: Inside the new rules of global trade, is based on year-over-year analysis of more than one million US customs entries. It identifies 2025 US tariff policy as a structural break in global trade execution, pushing companies beyond periodic sourcing adjustments and into more active management of duties during day-to-day operations.
Infios identifies two phases of response. The first was an initial shock period, when importers used short-term routing changes, temporary mode shifts, and USMCA-related surges to keep goods moving. The second phase has been more deliberate, with companies redesigning execution paths around tariff exposure, transit time, compliance complexity, duty deferral, and corridor viability.
The findings show effective duty rates reaching 20% to 80% higher in some categories because of tariff stacking. Air freight rose by around 12 percentage points and remained elevated, while ocean freight declined by around 10 to 12 points and did not rebound. Truck freight rose by about eight points, pointing to sustained nearshoring and shorter, more stable supply chains.
Bonded warehouse usage increased from roughly 10% to 16–18% of entries and continued to climb, showing how duty deferral has moved from a specialist customs tactic into mainstream supply chain planning. Harmonised Tariff Schedule classification complexity nearly doubled, rising from around six to 11.6 sequences per entry, increasing the burden on trade compliance teams and making manual workflows harder to sustain.
The report also found shipment value rising by around 78% while entry counts fell by roughly 7%. That indicates consolidation and more deliberate shipment planning rather than a simple retreat from trade. Consumer goods and light manufacturing showed more diversification away from China, while specialty chemicals and industrial components remained dependency-bound despite tariff exposure.
Tariffs are now influencing execution decisions that used to sit primarily inside logistics: whether to move by air, ocean, or road; whether to defer duty through bonded storage; whether to consolidate entries; whether to adjust routing; and whether a supplier or corridor remains viable under stacked duties and shifting policy.
This creates pressure on both systems and people. Trade teams need product classification accuracy, route intelligence, document control, supplier data, and scenario modelling. Logistics teams need to understand how mode decisions affect duty exposure, not only transport cost and service level. Procurement teams need to assess supplier resilience with tariff risk built into landed cost, rather than added after the sourcing decision has already been made.
Industrial cost structures have already been exposed by tariff volatility, from Ford’s tariff refund offsetting supply pressure to US tariff threats targeting EU vehicles. Infios adds the execution layer by showing how companies are changing the movement and management of goods, not only the sourcing base.
The findings also sit neatly alongside the company’s own technology direction. Infios has embedded AI agents into supply chain execution, with agents operating across warehouse, transport, order, document, and optimisation workflows. Tariff volatility creates the kind of multi-variable execution problem that conventional manual processes struggle to manage at speed.
The tariff-optimised supply chain is therefore less about chasing the cheapest origin and more about building optionality into execution. Companies that can sense tariff changes early, evaluate corridor and mode options quickly, and reconfigure flows before service or margin is damaged will be better placed than those locked into rigid routes and static compliance processes.
Tariffs have become part of operational design. The supply chains that absorb them best will be the ones treating trade execution as a live discipline, not a quarterly landed-cost review.
