Donald Trump trade war hits Americans with $7.8 billion loss
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WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s trade battles cost the US economy $7.8 billion in lost gross domestic product in 2018, a study by a team of economists at leading American universities published this week showed.
Authors of the paper said they analyzed the short-run impact of Trump’s actions and found that imports from targeted countries declined 31.5pc while targeted US exports fell by 11pc.
They also found that annual consumer and producer losses from higher costs of imports totaled $68.8 billion.
“After accounting for higher tariff revenue and gains to domestic producers from higher prices, the aggregate welfare loss was $7.8 billion,” or 0.04pc of GDP, the researchers said.
The study was authored by a team of economists at the University of California Berkeley, Columbia University, Yale University and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and published by the National Bureau of Economic research.