China Trade War Cost US $7.8 Billion Last Year

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
China Trade War Cost US $7.8 Billion Last Year

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The U.S. trade war with China has started to bite America financially. A new study shows the cost at $7.8 billion, as tariffs that could rise to as much as $250 billion take hold. The number is based on an analysis of import and export numbers.

The study was conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It defined the loss based on retaliatory tariffs. The conclusions were derived from an analysis of imports from targeted countries, which dropped 31.5% among products that carry tariffs while targeted U.S. exports fell 11.0%.

The research conclusion was this: “After accounting for higher tariff revenue and gains to domestic producers from higher prices, the aggregate welfare loss was $7.8 billion (0.04% of GDP). U.S. tariffs favored sectors located in politically competitive counties, but retaliatory tariffs offset the benefits to these counties.”

The number is small compared to some other data. A study conducted by the American Auction Forum put the annual cost at $37.9 billion a year. That research looked at factors that “are directly responsible for inflation, depressed aggregate demand, less capital expenditures, and lower productivity levels.”

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Yet another study from the consultancy Trade Partnership Worldwide took another view. It showed that the trade war with China would cost a million jobs.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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