80% of Spanish households are willing to look for alternative products to those from the US.

MadridThe tariff chaos wreaked by the United States has not gone unnoticed by Spanish households and their consumption patterns. A large number of families are willing to change their habits and seek alternative sources in the country when purchasing a product. Specifically, between 80% and 90% of households would be willing to "adjust their consumption decisions" and eliminate the United States from the equation, while only 10% would not consider doing so because they would have no alternatives, as confirmed by the Bank of Spain (BdE) through a survey (CE) on Tuesday, coinciding with the update of its macroeconomic forecasts.

The main reason why Spanish households would decide to shift consumption of products from the United States is the price increases (43.7% of households) they anticipate if tariffs are tightened. This increase is followed by a simple change in preference for the origin of the product purchased (38.6%), and only 8.2% of households indicate "other reasons," without specifying which ones. Similarly, 9.6% of households do not plan to change their purchases of products from the United States because they claim they lack "alternatives."

Apart from household consumption, tariffs (some in force and others to be finalized) are also causing changes in trade flows, or at least that's what the Bank of Spain confirms when observing exports in these first months of the year. "[Exports] are behaving abnormally because [companies] are anticipating possible [tariff] measures that may be taken in the future," stated the director general of the Bank of Spain, Ángel Gavilán, during the informative presentation of the report this Tuesday, which is also his last report after his decision to resign. In other words, those companies coming to the United States are doing so at an accelerated pace before some of the tariffs announced by Donald Trump, beyond those already in effect, can be approved.

Impact on the economy

"Just by opening this little box [of tariffs], macroeconomic conditions are less favorable," Gavilán reiterated. In fact, Donald Trump's trade war is one of the factors that explain why the Bank of Spain has decided to revise economic growth downwards for 2025, as announced this Monday by the bank's governor, José Luis Escrivá.

Specifically, the tariff chaos, but also the uncertainty surrounding external factors such as the evolution of energy prices or interest rates, accounts for 0.2% of the downward revision of GDP in 2025 (the Bank of Spain estimates that the Spanish economy will grow by 2.4%, or three, in March).

In addition to the tariffs, there is a slower economic performance in the first quarter of the year (also accounting for 0.2% of the downward revision) compared to the Bank of Spain's forecasts. This is mainly explained by the normalization of private household consumption, which closed at 0.2%.

The only positive note in the growth forecasts published this Tuesday by the Bank of Spain, and which represents a small boost to GDP (0.001%), is the public spending planned for defense through the Spanish government's plan. In any case, this contribution falls far short of that forecast by the Spanish government, which expects the announced program to contribute between 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points to GDP.