Economists have been bracing for tariffs ever since President Trump won the election last year. But the measures he took on Tuesday against the United States’ closest trading partners far exceeded what they expected, raising the risks of a much more significant blow to the economy.

For a period of time, it was not entirely clear whether Mr. Trump would follow through on threats to impose new tariffs on the country’s three largest trading partners, Canada, Mexico and China. Many economists, policymakers and even administration officials had talked about the levies as simply negotiating tools that could be used to extract better terms from other countries.

But on Tuesday, a 25 percent tariff on nearly all imports from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10 percent tariff on imports from China went into effect. Even now that the tariffs are in place, a number of experts still question how long they will last given their potential to significantly damage an otherwise solid economy.

Economists this week published a raft of new estimates that sought to capture how bad the damage could be.

One of the biggest concerns is how tariffs will impact price pressures that have yet to be fully extinguished in the aftermath of the worst inflation shock in decades following the pandemic. Consumer price growth remains higher than officials at the Federal Reserve, who are responsible for keeping inflation low and stable, want it to be. For them to lower interest rates, they want to be certain that inflation is coming back down to its 2 percent target.

Krishna Guha, vice chairman at Evercore ISI, an investment advisory firm, warned that if these tariffs were maintained, it would increase the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge by roughly half a percentage point by the final quarter of the year. That gauge — the core personal consumption expenditures price index, which strips out volatile food and energy prices — stood at 2.6 percent as of January.

The impact could persist into next year, Mr. Guha warned, forecasting an additional 0.2 percentage point bump in core P.C.E. inflation in 2026.

Another concern is what these tariffs may mean for economic growth. The last time there was a global trade war stewarded by Mr. Trump, growth fears edged out those related to inflation. The reason was partly because price pressures at that time were, if anything, too low rather than too high. Moreover, companies responded to the uncertainty by pulling back, lowering business activity and raising the prospects of a much sharper slowdown. That prompted the Fed to lower interest rates in 2019 to safeguard the economy.

This time around, Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, expects that if the tariffs are maintained and retaliation ensues, as has already started, the growth in gross domestic product will be a full percentage point lower than it would otherwise have been. That would suggest the U.S. economy would only grow 1 percent in 2025. Over the course of 2024, it grew 2.5 percent.

Ms. Bostjancic also estimates that what households end up spending on everyday items will increase on average by around $1,000 annually as a result of the tariffs.

“Part of the negative impact on economic activity stems from the drop in business, consumer and investor confidence, as the consensus view was that tariffs would be used as a threat and negotiating tool, instead of being implemented,” she said. “The deterioration in confidence could very well lead businesses to pare or at least delay investments and new hires, consumers to delay purchases, and for financial risk assets, such as equities, to decline or increase in volatility.”

Speaking at a House hearing on Tuesday, Mike Konczal, an economic official under the Biden administration, warned that the extreme uncertainty surrounding Mr. Trump’s tariff plans would also be detrimental.

“That kind of policy uncertainty is very poor for investments, very poor for growth,” he said. With “prices increasing at a period where consumers and everyday people are much more sensitive to prices than they may have been in more recent decades, I do worry it will feed into inflation expectations.”