Trump tariffs costing US consumers $1.4 billion per month, study shows
Thomas Franck
Damir Sagolj | Reuters
The Trump administration’s trade policies and tariffs reduced U.S. income at a rate of $1.4 billion per month by the end of last November, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University and Columbia University.
The collaborative study found that U.S. businesses and consumers saw “substantial increases†in the price of goods throughout last year, including a “complete passthrough†of U.S.-imposed tariffs onto imported items. The economists — the New York Fed’s Mary Amiti, Princeton professor Stephen Redding and Columbia professor David Weinstein — also said Americans suffered by a lack of import variety and disruptions to supply chains.
“Economists have long argued that there are real income losses from import protection. Using the evidence to date from the 2018 trade war, we find empirical support for these arguments,†the researchers wrote. “Losses mounted steadily over the year, as each wave of tariffs affected additional countries and products, and increased substantially after the imposition of the wave 6 tariffs on $200 billion dollars of Chinese exports.â€
Read more at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/ny-fed-trump-tariffs-costing-us-consumers-1point4-billion-per-month.html
No bowl of cherries, we were told, tariffs might hurt but would be necessary.
