A rhesus monkey on a calorie-restricted diet (left) and a control group monkey (right) who were subjects in a pioneering long-term study of the links between caloric restriction and aging at the University of Wisconsin's Wisconsin National Primate Research Center.

Researchers who use laboratory monkeys to study human diseases are worried that President Donald Trump's new tariffs on China will damage U.S. biomedical research and send animal testing labs to China.

The Trump administration is set to impose a 15% levy on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports as part of the escalating U.S.-China trade war. The first of those tariffs will go into effect Sept. 1 with the remainder imposed Dec. 15.

The new tariffs are a concern for U.S. researchers who are struggling to acquire live animals in the midst of intense scrutiny from animal rights groups and continued bans by airlines on transporting them. Animal rights activists, in contrast, view the tariffs as a temporary victory that could slow down the imports of monkeys.

"Subjecting nonhuman primates to increased tariffs would severely damage vital primate research in the United States, [and] create a strong incentive for U.S.-based research and development to migrate to China," said Matthew R. Bailey, executive director of the National Association for Biomedical Research.

Roughly 80% of all imported nonhuman primates used in scientific research in the U.S. come from China, according to the NABR. Monkeys are used to develop treatments for illnesses like AIDS, Ebola and Parkinson's.

As demand for lab monkeys continues to rise, U.S. scientists are reporting delays in research projects because they can't obtain enough animals, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Since most U.S. research projects are constrained by grant-dependent budgets, they would be unable to absorb a 5% to 25% cost spike for monkeys, according to the NABR. While some researchers will be forced to scale back projects due to the tariffs, others might cease U.S. operations and move research to China.

"The proposed tariff would hand China an even greater cost advantage, which will incentivize many researchers to conduct studies in China instead of the United States," Bailey wrote in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer.

For instance, when the U.S. restricted research on chimpanzees in 2015, research moved to China, where scientists obtained the primates for substantially less money — $1,500 in China compared with $6,000 in the United States, according to the NABR.