What will the US tariff rate on China be on July 1?

TL;DR

My forecast is 22.3% for July 1, 2026; the modal outcome is Yale Budget Lab's exact-date statutory China rate, with small tails for a Section 122 court change, a late tariff move, or a different resolution source (Budget Lab tracker).

Context

The question asks for a trade-weighted average effective tariff rate, not the headline tariff on any one product. The best match is a statutory daily tracker: Yale Budget Lab says its tracker assigns rates to almost 20,000 HS10 products across 240 trading partners, weights them by 2024 Census import values, and captures tariffs legally in effect on a given day rather than tariffs that are only announced (Budget Lab tracker).

The live tariff stack on China is normal MFN duties, legacy China Section 301 duties, Section 232 sector duties, and the temporary Section 122 surcharge. The Section 122 surcharge is 10%, began on February 24, 2026, excludes listed products and Section 232-covered value, and continues through 12:01 a.m. EDT on July 24, 2026 unless modified earlier (Federal Register, Proclamation 11012). July 1 is inside that window.

Evidence

The historical backbone is that China was already a high-tariff origin before the 2025 tariff shock, and customs-paid measures remained high even after IEEPA tariffs were struck down. USAFacts, a customs-duty-revenue divided by goods-imports measure, reports about 5% for 2002-2024, 10.9% in 2024, 30.6% in 2025, 30.7% for January-February 2026, and 29.6% in February 2026; its page was updated April 16, 2026 and uses US Census/USITC data (USAFacts China tariff page). PWBM gives a fresher customs-data cross-check: in a May 12, 2026 update using USITC DataWeb through March 2026, it reports an overall U.S. effective tariff rate of 7.1% and China at 25.0% in March 2026, the first full month after IEEPA tariffs were replaced by Section 122 (PWBM May 12 update). Those figures are useful scale checks, but they are monthly collected-duty measures, not the July 1 statutory rate.

The strongest direct evidence is the Budget Lab tracker data. Its May 9, 2026 vintage gives China at 22.2184% on July 1, 2026 and shows the next modeled step-down to 17.81% when Section 122 expires on July 24, 2026 (Budget Lab data download, Budget Lab tracker). The daily series below is collapsed to change-points; each value carries forward until the next date. Units are percentage points ad valorem, statutory and pre-substitution, using 2024 import weights.

The May 9 tracker is better than the April 8 Budget Lab country table for this question. The April 8 report gives China at 23.9% in a "Section 122 extended" end-2026 scenario and 19.4% in the "Section 122 expires" end-2026 scenario (Budget Lab April 8 report). That table is a useful source-choice check, but it is not the exact July 1 daily value and includes a later-year policy setup.

I checked the near-term movers. The Court of International Trade ruled against Section 122 on May 7, 2026, but the injunction was limited to named plaintiffs and the Federal Circuit granted a temporary stay, so the surcharge is still operational for most imports as of the latest legal summaries I found (Davis Wright Tremaine, May 2026). The June 1 Section 232 proclamation changes metal-derivative treatment from June 8, 2026, including some 15% reduced-duty categories and some added product coverage, but it is narrow relative to all China imports (White House June 1 proclamation). USTR's June 2 forced-labor Section 301 action proposes new duties, but written comments are due July 6, 2026 and hearings are July 7, 2026, after the target date (USTR June 2 notice). I read these as confirming a tight current-law center near 22.3%.

My distribution uses 78% on the current-law Budget-Lab-style outcome centered at 22.3%, 5% on a pre-July legal removal of Section 122 centered near 17.9%, 2% on a small China deal or product-relief case centered near 20.2%, 9% on higher source-choice or modest-tariff cases centered around 24.7%-25.0%, 3% on a stale/high secondary-source or late-tariff outcome near 29.6%, 2% on a larger escalation near 35%, and 1% on an extreme pre-July escalation above 40%. That gives a median of about 22.3%, a mean of about 22.9%, a 10th-90th percentile range of about 21.7%-24.9%, and about a 4% chance above 30%.

What's non-obvious

The common "around 30%" answer is usually mixing measurement concepts. USAFacts and PWBM are measuring duties collected divided by import value in a month, so they include entry timing, refunds, composition effects, and lagged tariff regimes (USAFacts China tariff page, PWBM May 12 update). Budget Lab is measuring a statutory rate in effect on a day, weighted by 2024 import values (Budget Lab tracker). For this resolution, the daily statutory object should dominate.

The other trap is the 10% Section 122 headline. Adding 10 points to an old China average overstates the result because Section 122 has exemptions and does not stack on Section 232-covered value (Federal Register, Proclamation 11012). Budget Lab's own daily data implies the China-weighted Section 122 effect is about 4.4 points, not 10 points: 22.22% before the scheduled expiry and 17.81% after it (Budget Lab data download).

Limitations

I did not rebuild the full HS10-by-country weighted tariff panel from raw HTS and Census files. I rely on Budget Lab's published methodology and data download for the exact 22.2184% July 1 China value, with cross-checks from its April 8 report, PWBM, USAFacts, the Federal Register, and current USTR notices (Budget Lab tracker, Budget Lab April 8 report).

The biggest remaining uncertainty is legal and administrative timing. A Federal Circuit order before July 1 could change Section 122 collection, and a surprise proclamation could alter the tariff stack. The known calendars point the other way: Section 122's scheduled expiry is July 24, 2026, and the new Section 301 comment/hearing dates fall after July 1 (Federal Register, Proclamation 11012, USTR June 2 notice). The second uncertainty is source choice: if the resolver privileges a customs-paid monthly series over Budget Lab's daily statutory tracker, the result could be a few points higher.