As the White House renewed the US's threat to place tariffs of 25 percent on 50 billion US dollars worth of Chinese goods, the tariff disputes have continued. The statement not only hurt bilateral trade ties, but more American jobs, especially in agriculture and the construction industry would be at risk. CGTN's Jim Spellman has the story.

US President Donald Trump ran for office promising to get tough on trade with China that would lead to more US jobs.

DONALD TRUMP US PRESIDENT "You lost your manufacturing, you lost your jobs. Other than that, you're doing great right. But we're going to bring it back, we're going to bring it back like never before."

But a new report funded by US retailers and technology companies concludes a tariff war may actually cost American jobs-and lots of them. Laura Baughman is co-author of the study.

Jim Spellman: "What kind of impact will the tariffs have in the United States?"

LAURA BAUGHMAN TRADE PARTNERSHIP WORLDWIDE "When you drill down and look at the impacts on things like US jobs it gets to be significant. We have estimated that the tariffs from the US coupled with the retaliation from China would cost up to 134,000 US jobs spread out over every state in the United States."

There will be winners and losers the report finds. If an initial round of US tariffs on 50 billion dollars' worth of Chinese goods, and corresponding Chinese countermeasures go through, the study finds more than 41 thousand jobs would be gained, but around 175 thousand will be lost. Hit particularly hard: agriculture, losing more than 67 thousand jobs, construction: more than 29 thousand jobs and the manufacturing sector loses nearly 11 thousands jobs.

DAN IKENSON CATO INSTITUTE "In order to have an uptick in manufacturing employment manufacturers need to have profits, What squeezes profits higher costs, lower revenues. A trade war would increase costs, reduce revenues and squeeze profits providing fewer resources to invest in expansions that create jobs."

With tariffs cutting into profits companies will look for ways to save money.

LAURA BAUGHMAN TRADE PARTNERSHIP WORLDWIDE "That's when they start casting out for cutting wages for workers, cutting out 401k contributions, or in the worst case, laying somebody off."

Every state will lose jobs, but the industrial Midwest and rural farming areas will be hit particularly hard-places that helped elect Donald Trump.

DAN IKENSON CATO INSTITUTE "Trump now has to realize that politically he has a problem, because if we are forced to go through and impose these tariffs, and the Chinese retaliate the US 'Ag' sector is going to be pummeled. US manufacturing is going to be hurt and that's really going to hurt the Republican prospects in Congress in November."

JIM SPELLMAN WASHINGTON "And when jobs are lost people stop spending money on things like going out to eat. Eventually costing even more jobs in sectors not directly hit by tariffs. Jim Spellman, CGTN Washington."