I'm glad they've done the work here and put a figure on it - the impact absolutely needed to be quantified - but I also have to say... to the surprise of absolutely no-one with even the most basic grasp of how economies function. People, lots of people, lots of people who have a really deep understanding of national and global economics (unlike me), have been warning about this since talk of tariffs became common cur…
Who ultimately pays the tariffs is missing the forest for the trees, their primary function is to tax, and taxation virtually always reduces spending. Don't want to pay tariffs? Buy domestic. Tariffs are the single reason (or one of very few) that the US isn't flooded with BYD electric cars from China. China's dirt cheap labor could decimate the US auto industry, but for tariffs and trade regulation, but I repeat mys…
What you're describing is called "dumping", and it's a strategy China has used to varying degrees of success in other markets in order to destabilize foreign industries. It could be seen as an act of war.
Chinese labor is not actually so cheap anymore, many other developing nations are significantly less expensive. But China's secret weapon is total control and coordination across industries. They use this to subsidize target industries for the export market. You've highlighted automakers, but they also target steel, aluminum, and others. To a casual observer it almost appears as if they were targeting industries that could be readily adapted to wartime production.