The Labor Department will release the August import price index on Tuesday — that’s a measure of prices as imports arrive at the border. In other words, before they’re subject to the President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The index has held fairly steady so far this year, but there are certain categories where prices have fallen in recent months. That’s a sign that some foreign exporters are trying to offset the cost of tariffs.

One category where import prices have fallen is computers and other electronics from China.

Sudeep Suman at the consulting company AlixPartners said a lot of electronics manufacturing has moved away from China because of tariffs. And Chinese manufacturers want to keep the lights on.

“Because this caused a surplus of capacity, the Chinese manufacturers are looking to further discount to fill that capacity,” he said.

Suman said another reason is manufacturers are worried that President Trump’s tariffs will make their products too expensive in the U.S.

“If the prices are not at the right level in the U.S., ultimately everybody loses,” he said.

Other categories where import prices have been falling include Chinese apparel and fabricated metals.

Meagan Schoenberger, senior economist at KPMG, said the price of European beer, wine and liquor is down, too.

“They are actually down from December 2024 to July 2025 nearly 11%. Now, as of July, the tariff on those products was 10%,” she said. 

Schoenberger said that’s a sign that many European exporters are concerned about losing market share to their American competitors.

“We expect there to be more discounting in sectors that have alternative domestic sources of supply. The U.S. does make a lot of wine,” she said.

Schoenberger said many exporters will eventually have to pass tariff costs on to American consumers.

But the alcohol industry is concerned that consumers can’t handle many more price hikes, said Spiros Malandrakis with the research company Euromonitor.

“Any even minor price increases from this point onwards, in most cases, will translate into straightforward sales declines,” he said.

Alcohol sales in the U.S. were already falling in the three years before the president’s tariffs even took effect, according to Euromonitor.

And Malandrakis said many alcohol importers and distributors here in the U.S. can’t afford to absorb the cost of tariffs, either.

“Adding more costs on that already difficult operating environment, some of them will inevitably go under and go bankrupt,” he said.

That possibility could be what’s pushing alcohol exporters in Europe to keep their prices down.