Tariffs, production networks and spillovers: the case of a US-China trade war

We study the short-run macroeconomic transmission of a US-China tariff war in an open economy multi-sector New Keynesian model with input-output linkages, sectoral nominal rigidities and heterogeneous currency invoicing. A reciprocal 10 percentage point tariff increase generates asymmetric incidence: the tariff-imposing country bears more of the inflationary burden, while the targeted country experiences the larger output contraction. Production networks amplify this contraction by propagating the shock beyond the directly tariffed bilateral margin. Currency invoicing further shapes transmission. Under heterogeneous invoicing, dollar-denominated border prices weaken the expenditure-switching role of exchange rates, deepening the contraction in China relative to producer-currency pricing and altering third-country spillovers. The euro area response is small in the aggregate, but only because positive trade-diversion margins are offset by weaker demand from China and multilateral adjustments. We then exploit the model’s sectoral structure by imposing tariffs on one Chinese sector at a time. Sectoral incidence is highly concentrated, but aggregate effects cannot be inferred from the directly tariffed sector alone: domestic propagation offsets own-sector gains in the United States, reinforces own-sector losses in China and leaves the euro area as a net object shaped by opposing trade margins. The results show that tariff incidence depends jointly on where the tariff lands, how the shock propagates through production networks and how invoicing governs border-price adjustment. A framework that combines these margins delivers a materially different assessment from one built on bilateral trade shares alone.