April 2025 U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $212.8 million, according to the latest Cutting Tool Market Report (CTMR) published by the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute (USCTI) and the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT).

That total was up 2.7% from March 2025, but down 2.8% from April 2024. The monthly increase in April followed a 4.3% increase in March, while the year-over-year decline followed a longer trend.

Through April, year-to-date cutting tool orders were down 5.1% at $818.3 million from a year earlier.

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“Tariff negotiations change every week without clear direction, stagnating key market segments for our products,” USCTI President Steve Boyer said in the release. “Industries like aerospace and automotive, which are heavy users of our products, have been lagging due to uncertainty regarding raw materials, inventories, and acquisition costs of components for assembly. The uncertainties have led to declines in year-over-year orders and delayed what most of us expected would be a considerable uptick for the first half of this year. Gaining traction in the second half of 2025 will be significantly impacted by the speed at which clarity is gained, and manufacturing can be ramped up once that’s achieved.”

Allied Machine and Engineering Executive Vice President Steve Stokey added in the report: “2025 did not get off to the strong start we experienced in 2024. Recent forecasts have pushed growth out to the third quarter. With clarity on tariffs beginning to take shape and the expectation that Congress and the president will pass the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ businesses will have a clearer picture of the playing field for the second half of 2025. If the forecasters are right, the stars should align, and the numbers will turn upward in the second half of the year.”

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The CTMR is jointly compiled by AMT and USCTI, two trade associations representing the development, production and distribution of cutting tool technology and products. It provides a monthly statement on U.S. manufacturers’ consumption of what they tout as the primary consumable in the manufacturing process — the cutting tool.

The graph below includes the 12-month moving average for the durable goods shipments and cutting tool orders. These values are calculated by taking the average of the most recent 12 months and plotting them over time. Click on the chart for a larger version.