If President-elect Donald Trump is serious about hitting all Chinese goods with tariffs of 60 percent or higher, experts warn it could lead to all-out economic warfare that would be particularly damaging to two key swing states that Trump flipped in 2024.
CNBC reports that the U.S.-China Business Council, in conjunction with Oxford Economics, estimates that a large-scale "economic war" with China could result in "permanent loss of revenue and pressure businesses to slash jobs and investment plans," costing the economy nearly one million jobs next year alone.
"The report projected that Nevada, Florida and Arizona would be among the states hardest hit by such tariffs due to their economic reliance on consumer demand," CNBC writes. "Manufacturing states such as Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Ohio would also be vulnerable, the Oxford report found."
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One area that China could target that could be particularly troublesome would be American agricultural products, as the country has already been looking for ways to lessen its dependency on products such as American soy, according to the report.
"If alternative supplies are available, China may well shift away from American farmers where they can,” explained James McGregor, a longtime business consultant on China.
He also warned that China is well positioned to simply shove American firms out the door via regulatory squeezes should it be given reason to do so.
"We will likely see retaliation against American companies in China where they could be step-by-step squeezed out of the China market and replaced," he said.
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