President Trump’s trade war with China has already denied Americans about 300,000 jobs, and by the end of next year that number could triple, reports Yahoo Finance.
The job-loss estimate is based on “likely employment levels absent the trade war” as calculated by the financial forecasting and risk-assessment group Moody’s Analytics.
The estimate derives from “a combination of jobs eliminated by firms struggling with tariffs and other elements of the trade war, and jobs that would have been created but haven’t because of reduced economic activity,” says Yahoo.
Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist, Mark Zandi, told Yahoo Finance “that the job toll from the trade war will hit about 450,000 by the end of the year, if there’s no change in policy. By the end of 2020, the trade war will have killed 900,000 jobs, on its current course. The hardest-hit sectors are manufacturing, warehousing, distribution and retail.”
At the other end of the U.S.-China trade pipeline, most American businesses operating in China believe Trump’s tariffs are a mistake.
“Of the 333 members taking part in an annual survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, 75% said they opposed the U.S. using tariffs, up from 69% a year ago. Only 14% said they supported Trump’s levies, an increase of five percentage points,” reports Bloomberg.
But Trump appears determined to keep raising the tariffs, with the next hike scheduled for Dec. 1 on Chinese-made consumer goods, especially electronics and smartphones.
“At that point,” Yahoo says, “the average tariff would have risen to 24.3% and Trump would have hiked taxes on virtually everything imported from China.”
“Trump is in denial, if his public comments are any indication. He says repeatedly, and falsely, that China is paying the tariffs, rather than Americans. He says the economy is doing great even though it’s clearly slowing down. Growth is only around 1.6% at the moment, and it could slow to 1% or worse by the end of the year,” says Yahoo, adding that: “Nobody knows where the trade war is headed.”
But wherever it’s headed, the longer the tariff-driven trade war continues, ever more American workers will be shut out of the jobs market.