U.S. businesses paid an additional 2.7 billion U.S. dollars in tariffs in November 2018, according to data released Thursday.
This is the most recent monthly data available due to the 35-day partial government shutdown which ended in late January, said Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, a nationwide campaign against the U.S. administration's recent tariffs, which released the data.
The data also shows that U.S. export growth hit its lowest level of 2018 in November, partly due to a 37-percent decline in exports of products facing retaliatory tariffs.
"This data shows that Americans, not our foreign competitors, are the big losers in the trade war," Tariffs Hurt the Heartland Spokesman and former Congressman Charles Boustany said in a statement.
"As U.S.-China trade talks resume, we hope the administration will heed the concerns of the thousands of American companies facing unprecedented tariff costs while making further progress toward an improved trading relationship and an end to the trade war," he said.
The monthly import data is calculated using numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, while the monthly export data is based on numbers from the Census Bureau and the Agriculture Department.
A study recently released by the group showed that nearly a million U.S. jobs could be lost due to newly imposed U.S. tariffs on foreign imports and retaliatory tariffs by its trading partners, with agriculture and service sectors being major victims.
