U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are hurting an unintended target as the trade war rages, an International Monetary Fund study found.

The study, released Thursday, said that tariff revenue collected from levies on Chinese goods "has been borne almost entirely" by U.S. importers.

China and the U.S. have been engaged in a trade war for more than a year. In that time, they have targeted billions of dollars worth of goods with high import tariffs. However, "there was almost no change in the (ex-tariff) border prices of imports from China, and a sharp jump in the post-tariff import prices matching the magnitude of the tariff," the study said.