📌 Study Focus

After President Trump initiated a public trade conflict with China, the Chinese government imposed retaliatory tariffs on thousands of products—covering more than USD 110 billion in U.S. exports. This article asks whether those tariffs were applied to impose political counterpressure by reducing support for the president's party, evaluates effects on the 2018 midterm elections, and investigates the mechanism linking tariffs to voting shifts.

📊 Mapping Tariffs onto U.S. Political Geography

• Product-level tariffs covering thousands of items and over USD 110 billion in exports were linked to county- and district-level measures of production and voting.
• Analyses examined the geographic concentration of affected production, partisan voting patterns at the county level, and the competitiveness of Congressional districts.
• Additional data sources used to trace mechanisms included:
• campaign communications data,
• local online search patterns,
• an original national survey measuring voter awareness and attribution of responsibility.

🔎 Key Findings

• Strong evidence shows retaliatory tariffs were systematically targeted at U.S. goods whose production was concentrated in counties that tended to support Republican candidates.
• Targeting was especially pronounced for goods produced in counties located within closely contested Congressional districts.
• These patterns corresponded to electoral effects: areas targeted by tariffs were more likely to swing away from Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms.
• Mechanism evidence indicates that residents in affected areas were more likely to:
• learn about the trade war,
• perceive direct adverse economic impacts,
• and assign responsibility for the dispute to Republicans—findings supported by campaign communication records, local search behavior, and the national survey.

💡 Why This Matters

The results demonstrate that interstate economic reprisals can be calibrated to exploit domestic political geography and that democratic electoral institutions can become a lever of vulnerability in international disputes—altering electoral outcomes by shifting local information, perceptions of harm, and blame attribution.