A March paper from economists at Columbia, Princeton, and the New York Federal Reserve found that the "full incidence" of Trump's tariffs have fallen on domestic companies and consumers -- costing them $3 billion a month by the end of 2018. The paper also found that the tariffs led to a reduction in US income, by $1.4 billion a month.
A separate academic paper also found that the tariffs led to higher consumer prices. It estimated that the tariffs will result in a $7.8 billion per year decline in income.
But in some instances, the Chinese supplier might take on the burden of the tariff by reducing its prices to maintain a market in the United States.
Still, the White House's Economic Report of the president , also released in March, acknowledged that American consumers are paying some of the cost of the tariffs. Domestic producers, it said, stand to benefit from price increases created by the tariffs, but "offsetting these benefits are the costs paid by consumers in the form of higher prices and reduced consumption.
While Trump is trying to realign trade so that US products become more competitive with their cheaper Chinese alternatives, this will require long-term adjustments to the US industrial base -- which is currently not designed to manufacture many of these products.
