Politics

Economists Predict Trump’s China Tariffs Will Cost 190K American Jobs

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Robert Donachie Capitol Hill and Health Care Reporter
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President Donald Trump’s administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods is expected to cost 190,000 Americans jobs, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi projected Wednesday.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released a list Tuesday of roughly 1,300 Chinese goods, worth approximately $50 billion, that will be subject to tariffs of around 25 percent.

“The total value of imports subject to the tariff increase is commensurate with an economic analysis of the harm caused by China’s unreasonable technology transfer policies to the U.S. economy,” the USTR wrote Tuesday.

Trump is adamant China is benefitting from unfair trade practices at the cost of the American worker, but Zandi’s projection tells a very different story. The American economy continues to add over 200,000 jobs on a month-to-month basis, adding 241,000 in March. Still, if Zandi’s projection is, more or less, correct, it could undercut roughly a month’s worth of job growth.

China is responding to the president’s move in kind, issuing a list of 106 U.S. imports it plans to slap with a 25 percent tariff Wednesday. The Chinese have yet to announce when they plan to levy the tariffs but are reportedly going to target goods, like airplanes, cars, whiskey and soybeans.

A number of American companies are speaking out against the Trump administration’s move.

The Chinese inclusion of soybeans in the tariffs is a unique example of the extent to which China is willing to fight Trump’s administration in what some are already calling a “trade war,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. The U.S. sent roughly $14.2 billion worth of soybeans to China in 2016. China was the end point destination of 61.2 percent of all U.S. soybean exports.

American Soybean Association President John Heisdorffer urged the president Wednesday to back away from imposing tariffs, claiming the potential loss to American farmers is entirely “preventable.”

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