section_path: Reactions/In the United States/Economists and analysts
section_name: Economists and analysts
paragraph_text: Economists and analysts
  
  According to articles in PolitiFact, most mainstream economists said that "consumers are the primary victims of tariffs" and most economists said that they carry "more risks than benefits". Nearly all economists who responded to surveys conducted by the Associated Press and Reuters said that Trump's tariffs would do more harm than good to the economy of the United States, and some economists advocated for alternate means for the United States to address its trade deficit with China.
  
  NYU Economics Professor Lawrence J. White has said that import tariffs are equivalent to a tax, and contribute to a higher cost of living.
  
  Economic analyst Zachary Karabell has argued that the administration's tariff-based approach would not work as it would not "reverse what has already been transferred and will not do much to address the challenge of China today, which is no longer a manufacturing neophyte" and also argued that the assertion that more rigorous intellectual property protections would "level the playing field" was problematic. He recommended instead that the U.S. focus on its relative advantages of economic openness and a culture of independence.
  
  James Andrew Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that what the United States needed from China was a commitment to observe the rules and norms of international trade and to extend reciprocal treatment to U.S. companies in China.
  
  In an April 2018 article in Forbes, Harry G. Broadman, a former U.S. trade negotiator, said that while he agreed with the Trump administration's basic position that the Chinese did not abide by fair, transparent and market-based rules for global trade, he disagreed with its means of unilaterally employing tariffs and said that the administration should instead pursue a coalition-based approach.
  
  In a 2018 speech on the trade war, former World Bank Chief Economist Priya Basu stated, "I'm from India. Over my entire career, I saw many developed countries try many approaches to open up the markets in developing countries. I never thought I would see the opposite happening.": 255
  
  In a November 2018 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Jennifer Hillman, a professor of practice at Georgetown University Law School, said that United States "ought to be bringing a big and bold case, based on a coalition of countries working together to take on China."
  
  Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that while it made sense for other countries to get more involved in confronting China, the problem was that they did not know how serious Trump was on reforming the larger, systemic issues.
  
  Michael Wessel described plans to allow foreign companies a greater role in the Chinese technology program "an influence operation at its best" and also questioned whether changes in relevant Chinese laws would mean much so long as the courts remained under the control of the Chinese Communist Party.
  
  A May 2019 article written by Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center argued that the impact of the trade war would eliminate "most or all" of the benefits from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act for low- and middle-income households.
  
  Economists at financial firm Morgan Stanley expressed uncertainty about how the trade war would end, but warned in June 2019 that it could lead to a recession.
  
  Economist Panos Mourdoukoutas states that China's elites were fighting the trade war under the wrong assumption that China had reached "power parity" with the U.S. and that although an economic divorce between the two countries would have some consequences for the US, it would on the other hand be devastating for China.
  
  In November 2019, Jim Cramer said that unless China purchased a considerable amount of American goods as a way to prove the validity of the arguments proffered by the free-trade contingent in the Trump administration, the U.S.–China trade war would continue on for a significant period of time.
  
  After the first phase of a trade deal was agreed upon in December 2019, Mary E. Lovely of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and professor at Syracuse University said the ceasefire was "good news" for the American economy while expressing optimism that the talks would help address China's "unfair" intellectual property practices.
  
  Economist Paul Krugman said in September 2020 that if Democratic candidate Joe Biden won the U.S. presidential election, he should maintain a tough stance against China, but focus more on industrial policy than trade tariffs.
  
  Economist C. Fred Bergsten concluded in 2021 that "China's economy is too large and too powerful to be suppressed. It fended off the Trump attacks with little damage, and indeed with renewed confidence in its prospects."
  
  In study on the trade-effects of regulation in 2023, economists Knut Blind and Moritz Böhmecke-Schwafert concluded that tariff hikes by the US are expected to have an opposite effect in the mid- and long-term "and exports from China to the US might actually increase" based on trade data of OECD and BRICS countries in the last two decades.