The economic fallout from President Donald Trump's trade battles will likely cost the Republican Party in the upcoming midterm elections, according to a Politico report.
Trump's latest 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports take effect Monday, and his ongoing fights with Mexico, Canada, and the European Union over trade are putting the GOP at risk.
The Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome, a trade attorney, told Politico "where you have real-world effects of the trade war, you see people's opinions sour dramatically . . . look at places like Washington state where people are dependent on exporting cherries and apples, or rust belt states that border Canada, or Tennessee with auto and bourbon makers, and you are going to see close races where this is actually a decisive issue."
In addition to the tariffs already put in place, Trump has threatened to increase the rate of the latest tariff to 25 percent Jan. 1 if China does not comply with his demands, and President Trump also threatened to impose tariffs on over $500 billion of Chinese imports, which would affect almost every product that China exported to the U.S. last year.
"If you are kind of in the middle- or lower-income groups, you are buying a lot of what economists call tradeable goods, and you'll be hit a lot harder," Kyle Handley, University of Michigan's Ross School of Business assistant professor of business economics and public policy, told Politico. "This is basically the Trump voter who is going to see the biggest hit to their total spending."
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