New report reveals potential impact of Trump tariffs on Heartland

An analysis by the Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, has found that President Donald Trump’s 10% tariff increase on Chinese goods will harm industrial sectors that employ large swaths of the president’s rural base. 

This is because Trump’s tariffs have sparked a new chapter in the ongoing trade war between the two superpowers: In response to Trump‘s policy, China announced it will impose a 15% tariff on energy exports and a 10% tariff on manufacturing products. These financial levies build upon similar tariffs introduced by China in 2018.

But the consequences of the trade war created by Trump will not be allocated equally. According to the Brookings report — which examined the economic makeup of counties alongside whether said counties backed Trump or Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in 2024 — two out of every three impacted jobs are located in counties that swung for Trump. In particular, it was rural and industrial counties in states like North Dakota, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan that will be under duress. 

“…A significantly larger number of Trump-voting counties have employment in tariff-affected industries than those that voted for Harris,” the report reads. “Of the 2,010 counties with employment in tariff-affected industries, 1,722 of them voted for Trump compared to just 288 for Harris.” 

However, it’s too soon to tell exactly how employment and consumer prices will be influenced by the exchange of costly tariffs — especially given how mercurial Trump’s position on tariffs has been concerning other key trading partners like Mexico and Canada. 

Regardless, the trade war signals an almost inevitable conflict that will unfold over the next four years. In a recent examination by The Guardian of Trump’s long-held fascination with tariffs and how it contrasts with Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s export-driven strategies, the British newspaper remarked that we are “living through a collision of economic trajectories.” 

“At some point, even Donald Trump’s most vocal skeptics will have to concede that his ideas, in conjunction with Xi Jinping’s, have ushered in a new economic epoch,” author Andrew Liu concluded. 

That epoch could be an economic disaster for the very voters who helped return Trump to office.