Tariff update

The Trump tariffs have now been in place long enough that economists have had time to conduct rigorous research regarding their impact.  Three recent studies of note:

Washing machines: three economists at the Federal Reserve and the University of Chicago took a deep dive into the tariffs placed on washing machines.  They found that washing machine prices rose by 12 percent across the board in the US, imported machines went up just as much as domestically produced ones.  Also drier prices went up by the same amount, even though they were not subject to the tariff.  They estimate the cost to consumers to be $1.5b a year.  Samsung and LG are opening plants in the US and Whirlpool is adding jobs as well, but this amounts to 1800 new jobs at a cost of $820k per job.  Hope your washer and dryer hold up!

Economy-wide impact: another team from Columbia, the New York Fed, and Princeton looked at the collective effect of all the Trump tariffs.  They found the tariffs were passed on to customers 100% in the form of higher prices, resulting in a loss of $1.5b per month.   In addition, the tariffs imposed by China, EU, Mexico and others as counter-measures had an adverse effect on US exports of $2.4b per month.

Yet another team from Cal-Berkeley, Columbia, UCLA, and Yale reached similar conclusions.  Imports dropped 31.5% in markets covered by the Trump tariffs and US exports dropped 11% in response to retaliatory tariffs.

Does anyone notice a pattern here?  And what will happen if tariffs on China are ratcheted up even further in the next few days?