Trump's former top adviser: tariffs backfiring on USThe tariff battle has had a "dramatic impact" on US manufacturing and capital investment, Gary Cohn told Radio 4's Today programme.
The trade war was "a very convenient excuse" for China to slow down its overheated economy, he added.
Mr Cohn, a free trade advocate, resigned from the Trump administration in March 2018.
"I think the Chinese economy was going to slow down with or without a trade war," Mr Cohn said.
The idea that tariffs would solve trade imbalances between the US and China was a "long-time view" of Mr Trump's, Mr Cohn added.
However, he said Mr Trump was right to try to tackle China's theft of US intellectual property and blocking of US companies' access to Chinese markets.
"That has to be fixed," he said.
But he warned: "I think everyone loses in a trade war. We are an 80% service economy. The service side of the economy is doing very well, because, guess what, it's not being tariffed."
Mr Cohn said the tariffs had made it expensive to import vital products from China, counteracting the effects of Mr Trump's tax cuts, which were designed to stimulate the US economy.
He said: "When you build plant equipment, you're buying steel, you're buying aluminium, you're buying imported products and then we put tariffs on those, so literally the tax incentive we gave you with one hand was taken away with the other hand.
"So we are not seeing the manufacturing job creation. And I think if we get through this tariff situation, there's a real opportunity to see it here in the United States."
