"But I believe there's widespread agreement ... that there is something amiss with our economic relationship with China and it's past time that our government pushes back a little more forcefully."

Lower Incomes

It would take years for U.S. industry to rebuild supply chains devastated by sudden tariff hikes on Chinese and Mexican goods and any retaliatory measures, said Peter Petri, a Brandeis University professor who has co-authored an influential study on the effects of the TPP trade deal on national income.

Even if U.S. firms were able to make such a transition, Petri said this would likely result in a permanent annual reduction in U.S. national income of more than $100 billion, or 0.8 percent.

Trump's tariff plans would effectively violate NAFTA and revoke U.S. commitments to the World Trade Organization, say trade lawyers.

Beijing and Mexico City "are just going to retaliate on the things that are likely to hurt us most," said Susan Schwab, the U.S. Trade Representative from 2006 to 2009 in the George W. Bush administration. Schwab negotiated major portions of free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

In 2009, Mexico slapped duties up to 25 percent on more than 90 different U.S. farm goods, from pork to frozen potatoes due to foot-dragging by U.S. lawmakers on allowing Mexican truckers on to U.S. roads, as specified under NAFTA. The National Potato Council estimates that U.S. growers lost about $70 million in revenue over 31 months, a 50 percent cut from their third-largest export market.

Mexico's economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo said last week that big tariffs on Mexico would return the United States to "an isolationist, xenophobic and protectionist vision."
And a full-scale tariff war with China would likely expose the largest U.S. export sectors to steep duties, including aircraft, semiconductors, corn and soybeans, trade lawyers said.

Retaliatory tariffs would also hurt growing U.S. vehicle exports to China––at 300,000 a year now equivalent to the annual output of a large assembly plant. General Motors Co is now planning to import a Buick sport-utility vehicle from a Chinese joint venture plant.
A GM spokesman declined to comment.

China's state-run Global Times newspaper called Trump "big-mouthed, anti traditional and abusively forthright" in an editorial, but did not directly address his tariff proposals.

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