In unveiling tariffs this week challenging the decades-old international trade order, President Donald Trump lambasted globalization as a raw deal for the United States that has devastated US manufacturing towns.

Trump left out the upside to the United States from the liberal flow of goods: a reliable supply of affordably priced appliances, clothing and electronics whose consumption has helped lift US economic growth above other developed economies in recent years.

"Obviously we've benefited significantly," said Paul Gruenwald, global chief economist at S&P Global Ratings. "We get to consume a lot of things that are produced more efficiently in other countries."

Trump's tariffs are almost certain to negatively impact this dynamic, say economists who see the levies lifting the price on everything from Gap t-shirts to the Apple iPhone to French wine.

"This is very clearly going to raise consumer prices," Michael Pearce, a US economist with Oxford Economics, said of the barrage of levies announced late Wednesday in an........

© International Business Times