New Scottish Government estimates show US tariff effects remain concentrated among manufacturers and goods exporters, while the American tariff regime itself changed during the period covered by the latest survey.
Nearly one in four larger manufacturing businesses with a presence in Scotland reported being affected by US tariffs during the latest Scottish Government business survey.
The estimate for manufacturing was 24.5%, compared with 9.9% across all businesses covered by the survey. Manufacturing recorded the highest affected share of any sector included in the published results.
The figures come from Wave 161 of the Business Insights and Conditions Survey, which ran from 20 July to 2 August 2026 and asked businesses what effect, if any, United States tariffs had had on them during the previous month.
There is an important qualification to the figures. The Scottish Government’s weighted estimates cover businesses with 10 or more employees and a presence in Scotland. They do not include Scotland’s large population of micro and very small businesses.
A business is counted as having a Scottish presence if it operates a site such as an office, factory or shop in Scotland, even if its headquarters are elsewhere. The Scottish Government excluded businesses with fewer than 10 employees because there were not enough Scottish responses in that group to construct suitable weighted estimates.
The survey is also voluntary. Of 10,034 businesses responding across the UK in Wave 161, 1,200 had a presence in Scotland. Once businesses with fewer than 10 employees were removed, the Scottish base consisted of 1,107 responding businesses. The results were then weighted to produce estimates for the wider population of businesses meeting those criteria.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing, electricity and gas supply, financial and insurance activities and the public sector are among the areas excluded from the underlying BICS coverage.
For that reason, the 24.5% manufacturing figure should not be reported as though almost one quarter of every manufacturer operating in Scotland has been individually counted. It is a weighted estimate for the larger-business population covered by the survey.
Exporters report much greater exposure
The difference becomes particularly clear among businesses that actually sell goods abroad.
An estimated 23.9% of businesses which had exported goods during the previous 12 months said US tariffs had affected them during the preceding month.
Among all businesses covered by the Scottish estimates, the corresponding figure was 9.9%.
For goods exporters, 14% reported experiencing additional costs, making that the most commonly reported tariff effect.
At the same time, 54.8% of goods exporters said they had experienced no impact.
The survey does not put a monetary value on those effects. It cannot show whether a company reporting additional costs absorbed £5,000 or £5m, whether those costs reduced margins, were reflected in prices, or led customers to buy less.
It also does not measure the tariff bill paid at the US border by Scottish-origin goods. It measures what businesses themselves reported experiencing.
The pattern has persisted
The latest figures are not the first indication that manufacturing is carrying a disproportionate share of Scotland’s exposure to US trade measures.
A comparable Scottish Government survey covering 18 to 31 August 2025 found that 23.1% of manufacturing businesses had been affected by US tariffs. At that point, 11.2% of all businesses covered by the estimates reported an impact.
Among goods exporters, the 2025 estimate was 22.9%, with 14.1% reporting additional costs.
The point estimates have therefore moved from 23.1% to 24.5% for manufacturing and from 22.9% to 23.9% for goods exporters between those two survey periods.
Those movements should not be treated automatically as statistically significant increases. What the two sets of results demonstrate more safely is that the concentration of reported tariff effects in manufacturing and goods exporting has persisted across separate survey periods.
That exposure reflects the structure of Scotland’s trade with the United States.
United States is Scotland’s second-largest goods market
The US was Scotland’s second-largest international market for goods in 2025, accounting for exports worth £4.3bn, or 18% of Scotland’s total international goods exports.
Only the European Union, taken collectively, accounted for a larger share.
Engineering and advanced manufacturing alone accounted for £2.04bn of Scottish goods exports to the United States in the year to June 2025, excluding oil and gas.
Scottish Government analysis found that exports to the US from that sector had increased by 70% between 2021 and 2025.
That level of trade helps explain why the national business figure and the manufacturing figure can look so different. A domestic service business may have little direct exposure to US import duties, while a manufacturer selling physical products into the American market can encounter them as part of its ordinary trading environment.
The effect is not uniform even within manufacturing because the United States does not currently impose one identical tariff on every product arriving from Britain.
The tariff system changed during the survey
That distinction is particularly relevant to the latest Scottish data because the American tariff regime changed while Wave 161 was being conducted.
The broad additional duties imposed under the US International Emergency Economic Powers Act were ended by a White House order on 20 February 2026. Other tariffs imposed under separate legal powers were unaffected.
The White House then introduced a separate temporary 10% import surcharge under Section 122 of US trade law, taking effect on 24 February.
That surcharge contained a substantial list of exemptions, including pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients, certain aerospace goods, some vehicles and vehicle parts, energy products and other specified goods. It was scheduled to remain in force for 150 days, through 24 July 2026, unless altered earlier or extended by Congress.
On that same date, 24 July, another US measure came into effect.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative imposed new Section 301 duties following investigations into the failure of 60 economies to prohibit or effectively restrict imports produced using forced labour.
The United Kingdom was placed among a group subject to an additional 10% Section 301 tariff, with exemptions for specified products.
The timing means businesses answering the Scottish survey were describing their experience across a period in which one temporary tariff mechanism was reaching its scheduled end and another was beginning.
The latest 9.9% and 24.5% figures cannot therefore be attributed to a single unchanged 10% tariff applying in precisely the same way throughout the month.
Scotch whisky is among the exemptions
The new Section 301 regime also contains an exemption particularly relevant to Scotland.
The official US tariff schedule specifically exempts goods from the United Kingdom classified under code 2208.30.30 — Irish and Scotch whiskies — from the new additional duty.
A range of medical equipment is also included in the UK exemption list.
That makes it unsafe to describe current US tariff exposure simply in terms of a universal levy on Scottish exports.
Different Scottish industries can face materially different conditions depending on the product involved, its customs classification, whether another US tariff regime applies and whether it falls within an exemption.
For manufacturers, that can make the trading environment more complicated even when a particular product escapes one additional duty. A company may produce several product lines, use components from different countries or sell through customers whose own costs have changed.
The BICS results capture businesses’ assessment of the overall effect on them; they do not identify the customs codes responsible for each response.
A large market with a concentrated risk
The Scottish Government is simultaneously trying to expand Scottish sales in the United States.
Its 2026 export strategy identifies the US as a priority destination for engineering and advanced manufacturing, supported by the £2.04bn already being sold into that market.
That creates a straightforward commercial tension. The United States remains one of Scotland’s largest and most valuable export destinations, while access to it has become subject to a more active and rapidly changing use of tariff policy.
The latest survey suggests that this is still not being experienced equally across the Scottish economy.
More than half of goods exporters covered by the survey reported no tariff effect. The majority of businesses overall did not report one either.
But among larger manufacturers, the affected share was 24.5%.
For companies in that group, the question at the US border increasingly depends not merely upon what they make and what it costs, but upon the tariff authority currently in force, the customs classification attached to the product and whether Washington has placed it inside or outside an exemption.
Sources
Scottish Government — Business Insights and Conditions in Scotland, Wave 161: United States Tariffs, published 13 August 2026
https://www.gov.scot/publications/bics-weighted-scotland-estimates-data-to-wave-161/pages/united-states-tariffs/
Scottish Government — Business Insights and Conditions in Scotland, Wave 161: Data and Methodology
https://www.gov.scot/publications/bics-weighted-scotland-estimates-data-to-wave-161/pages/data-and-methodology/
Scottish Government — BICS Weighted Scotland Estimates, Wave 139: United States Tariffs, published 11 September 2025
https://www.gov.scot/publications/bics-weighted-scotland-estimates-data-to-wave-139/pages/united-states-tariffs/
Scottish Government — Inflation Adjusted HMRC Regional Trade Statistics for Scotland Q4 2025: Export Destinations
https://www.gov.scot/publications/inflation-adjusted-hmrc-regional-trade-statistics-for-scotland-q4-2025/pages/destinations/
Scottish Government — US Export Plan: Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing, published 18 June 2026
https://www.gov.scot/publications/export-plan-sector-report-engineering-advanced-manufacturing/pages/3/
The White House — Ending Certain Tariff Actions, 20 February 2026
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/ending-certain-tariff-actions/
The White House — Imposing a Temporary Import Surcharge to Address Fundamental International Payments Problems, 20 February 2026
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/02/imposing-a-temporary-import-surcharge-to-address-fundamental-international-payments-problems/
Office of the United States Trade Representative — USTR Takes Action in Forced Labor Section 301 Investigations, July 2026
https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2026/july/ustr-takes-action-forced-labor-section-301-investigations
Office of the United States Trade Representative — Final Section 301 Action and Product Exemptions, including United Kingdom goods
https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/2026/FLIP%20301%20Investigation%20Final%20Action%20FRN%207-23-26%20FINAL.pdf
