Article content

Trade wars may be “easy to win,” according to U.S. President Donald Trump, but congressional seats? Not so much.

Trump’s Republicans lost a handful of seats in last year’s mid-term elections due to the retaliatory tariffs issued by Canada, China, the EU and Mexico, a new study found. That means Canada’s response played a small role in wrestling control of the House of Representatives to the Democrats last year.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Global retaliation against U.S. tariffs cost Donald Trump in Congress, study finds Back to video

The study measures the effect at a county-level of U.S. tariffs, the global retaliatory tariffs and government subsidies designed to help those hurt by the retaliation. Along with health care outcomes, which was a major policy issue in the election, the study also controls for a variety of other demographic and economic data to untangle the motivation behind the voting patterns.

“These findings suggest that both the trade war and health care policy contributed meaningfully to the 2018 ‘Blue Wave,’ in which Republicans lost a total of 40 House seats,” the paper reads. “Republican candidates lost ground in counties that were adversely affected by retaliatory tariffs, but saw no discernible gains in counties where workers were disproportionately protected by new U.S. tariffs.”