They also found that annual consumer and producer losses from higher costs of imports totalled $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 0.04 percent 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. The authors said while US tariffs favoured sectors located in "politically competitive" counties, the retaliatory tariffs imposed on US goods have offset the benefits to these areas. "We find that tradeable-sector workers in heavily Republican counties were the most negatively affected by the trade war," the researchers said.

Source: bd News24 March 15, 2019 20:03 UTC