Q&A: Does a manufacturing slump threaten the US economy?

Reported today on The Seattle Times

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Q&A: Does a manufacturing slump threaten the US economy?

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defying fears and predictions, the U.S. economy is still shrugging off President Donald Trump's trade conflicts.

Employers added a sizzling 266,000 jobs in November, and unemployment matched a 50-year low of 3.5% - all while the Trump administration is waging a bruising trade war with China while fighting other trading partners, too.

Yet the economy has hardly been unscathed. Farmers are suffering. Manufacturers are mired in a slump. Business investment is down because managers don't know when - or whether - the trade hostilities, with their vast web of import taxes, will end.

What's more, a new round of Trump tariffs - import taxes on $160 billion more in Chinese goods - is set to hit Dec. 15. Those tariffs would strike directly at American consumers, who are driving the economic expansion and have so far been largely spared the worst of the pain from Trump's trade fights.

Can the U.S. economy, which has grown steadily if tepidly for over a decade - the longest expansion on record - withstand the manufacturing slump and the Trump trade war?

Here are some questions and answers:

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HOW HAS THE US ECONOMY WEATHERED THE THREATS?

So far, the U.S. impact of Trump's trade wars has been confined largely to farms and factories. And trade, farming and manufacturing constitute a surprisingly small portion of the American economy.

Exports and imports account for just 27% of America's gross domestic product, the broadest gauge of economic output. Only in Nigeria, Cuba, Burundi and Sudan does trade represent a smaller share of GDP than in the United States, according to the World Bank.

American farmers have been punished by other countries' retaliatory tariffs, notably from China's

economy?