CBO: Trump tariffs cutting into economy

President Trump’s trade wars have cost the U.S. economy, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates released Monday.

The CBO predicts that the imports and exports tariffs will cost the economy about .1 percentage point, on average, through 2029.

{mosads}“On net, CBO estimates that the new tariffs on both imports and exports will reduce U.S. real GDP by about 0.1 percent, on average, through 2029,” the CBO report said.

Since taking office, President Trump has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as a broad swath of Chinese imports, among other things. The president says the duties are necessary to produce better trade deals in the future. 

All in all, the tariffs amounted to import taxes of 10-30 percent on $284 billion of imported goods, amounting to 12 percent of all imported goods. In response, U.S. trade partners put tariffs of their own on $134 billion worth of American exports, equivalent to 9 percent.

One upside of the tariffs, however, has been a boost in revenue.

In 2018, the level of revenues collected from both pre-existing and new tariffs amounted to $41 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP. CBO projected that the level of duties would rise to 0.3 in 2019 and hover between 0.3 and 0.4 percent of GDP over the next decade.