D2 Business The Boston Globe MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 2019
ByAlan Rappeport,
JeannaSmialek,
and NelsonD. Schwartz
NEWYORKTIMES
NEWYORK — President
Trumpannouncedanotherwave
of China tariffs last week,essen-
tially sayinghe would imposea
tax on nearly all $540 billion in
Chinese goods that come into the
United States in a year. And this
batch couldreallybite.
The administration carefully
tailoredpreviousrounds of tariffs
to pinch businesses in ways that
most Americans might not notice.
But the 10 percent levy on $300
billion of imports that Trumpan-
nouncedThursday, whichwould
take effect Sept. 1, is expected to
hit consumerswhere it hurts.
From Apple’s iPhonesto school
supplies, a broad swath of every-
day products are about to get
moreexpensive.
The latest move is likely to
promptcompaniesto submitex-
clusion requests to be sparedfrom
the tariffs, causethe Federal Re-
serve to rethinkits plansfor inter-
est rates, and inspirefresh retalia-
tion fromChina that couldcom-
poundAmericans’ economicpain.
Here’s what to expect:
Until Sept. 1, the focus will be
on the Office of the US Trade Rep-
resentative for a finallist of the
Chineseproducts subject to the
new tariffs. The itemswill come
from a 76-page list published in
the Federal Register in May after
Trumpsaid that he wanted to
have more potentialtariffs in his
quiverif the trade disputedragged
on.
Not every itemon the May list
will necessarily face tariffs. The
trade representative’s office held a
week of hearings about the pro-
posedduties and has received
commentsfrombusinesses
around the country hoping for ex-
emptions.
If the tariffs do take effect Sept.
1, companies will have an oppor-
tunity to apply for exemptions. In
previousinstances, thoseseeking
waivers had to explainwhy the
tariffs would cause them “severe
economic harm,” whetherthe
product at issueor a comparable
one was unavailable outside Chi-
na, and whetherthe itemwas
“strategically important” to Chi-
na’s industrial policy.
Earlier rounds of tariffs mostly
focusedon industrial goods, but
the 10 percent levy announced
Thursday is directed squarely at
consumer items like clothes, toys,
and footwear.
That is bad news for, among
others,shoemakers and the stores
that sell their products, said Matt
Priest, chief executive of the Foot-
wear Distributors and Retailers of
America.Less than1 percentof
shoesare madedomestically, and
China is the sourceof 70 percent
of the goods imported into the
United States.
“We’re very concerned this willbe a long-termcost baked into
what consumers will pay,” Priest
said,addingthat he was not ex-
pecting exclusions to be madefor
footwear.
“Nearlyevery type of shoeis
made in China, so there will be
impact across the board,” he said.
The onlyexceptions are some
high-end leathershoesthat are
madein Europe.
Withsomeconsumerproducts,
the supplycomes almost entirely
fromChina, said David French,se-
nior vice president of government
relationsat the NationalRetail
Federation. He cited umbrellas,
electric blankets, and toys.
“Trumpis feelingvery muscu-
lar right now,” French said. “But
the next round of tariffs will hit
the president’s baseparticularly
hard.The peoplewho votedfor
him in 2016felt economicallyvul-
nerable.The tariffs will causejob
losses and higher prices for every-
bodybut especially his base.”
The most prominent company
bracing for the tariffs is Apple,
whichtypically unveils new prod-ucts every September.
In a letter in June, Appleurged
Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s top
trade adviser, not to proceed with
any new tariffs. The company
warned that suchtariffs would
hamperits global competitiveness
and reduce its contribution to the
US economy. Apple also said that
new tariffs would tilt the playing
field in favor of its globalrivals.
Trump has shown little sympa-
thy for Apple.Last month, after
the company filed 15 tariff-exclu-
sion requests, he said they would
be denied andthe company
shouldmake its products in the
United States.
Shouldthe proposed tariffs
take effect on Sept. 1, they’ll hit
Apple’s phones,watches, Mac-
Books,iMacs, iPads, AppleTV, key-
boards,and batteries.
Throughoutthe trade conflict,
Beijing has demonstrated a will-
ingness to respond to the Trump
administration’s tariffs as propor-
tionately as possible.
On Friday, China’s foreign min-
ister, Wang Yi, said that “adding
tariffs is definitely not the correct
way to resolveeconomicand trade
frictions.”
US officials were waiting to see
how China plannedto retaliate.
The trade imbalance between
the two countries leaves China
with limited options for imposing
additional tariffs on imports from
the United States. Beijing could
introduce different kinds of barri-
ers, includingsurprise inspec-
tions,license rejectionsfor US
companies, or a broadeningof
China’s “unreliable entities”list.
Analysts have also suggested
that China could considercurbing
exports of so-called rare-earth
minerals to the United States, re-
instate a tariff on US cars, or con-
tinue to shunsoybeans from
Americanfarmers.Throughoutthe yearlong dis-
pute, China and the United States
have continuedto talk through
their disagreements. China’s next
movemay be to givethe silent
treatmenta try.
The Federal Reserve was al-
ready laser-focused on the trade
war before Trump’s latest tariff an-
nouncement. Officials lowered in-
terest rates last week for the first
time in morethan a decade,partly
becauseof the uncertainty stoked
by the tariffs and the risk that they
pose to the economicoutlook.
Fed officials do not believe that
the tariffs alreadyin place have by
themselveshurt growth signifi-
cantly. But policy makers worry
that the extended fight is causing
businesses to hold back on invest-
ment, whichcouldultimately hurt
the broadereconomy.
Trump’s choice to escalate the
fight with China puts JeromePow-
ell, the Fed chair, and his col-
leagues in a difficult position.
Their job is to keep the economy
operating on an even keel. But by
loweringrates, whichcan help
keep growthsteadyand buttress
the stock market, the Fed may in-
advertentlygive Trumpthe cover
that he needs to pursue his trade
spats.
Powell has often said that the
Fed wouldkeep its focus on its
two statutory responsibilities:sus-
tainingmaximumemployment
and stable inflation.
On the latter point, tariffs offer
the Federal Reserve a surprisesil-
ver lining. They could drive infla-
tionhigher if companies raise
prices on imported goods. The
central bankhas triedto coax pric-
es up to, or even slightlyabove,its
2 percent inflation target — a goal
it has undershot for years.Offi-
cials might seizeon an opportuni-
ty to provethat they are readyto
accepthotter pricegains.Consumers would feel bite from latest tariff plan
President
Trumpis
planningtariffs
onalmost all
goodsfrom
Chinathat are
notcurrently
subject to
them.ways gone askew, and the hidden
risk factors. A search for these
biomarkers has become a primary
focus of a field once focused more
narrowly on finding a single
therapeutic solution.
For decades, Alzheimer’s
research was dominated by a
single prevailing hypothesis of
what causes the disease: the so-
called beta-amyloid theory. It was
based on the notion a buildup of
protein fragments in the brain,
called beta-amyloid plaques, kills
neurons and ultimately causes
debilitating symptomsincluding
memory loss, disorientation, and
delusion.
Mouse models of Alzheimer’s
showed that removing these
plaques could improve symptoms
of dementia.
The majority of Alzheimer’s
researchers have focused on the
amyloid hypothesis. Drug
companies gambled big,
developing a spate of amyloid-
targeting drugs meant to flush
them out of the brain.
But not a single one of the
roughly200 experimental
amyloid-targeting drugshas
worked in late-stage clinical trials.
One of the most devastating
failures came earlier this year,
when one of the industry’s
standard-bearers, Cambridge,
Mass.-based Biogen, pulled out of
a Phase 3 trial, shattering hopes
the experimental drug
aducanumabwould work.
At AAIC, the beta-amyloid
theory remained alive and well,
with scientists arguing that
amyloid is a trigger for the
disease, not just another side
effect of the mysterious disease
process. At the same time,
however, researchers expressed a
new openness to unorthodox,
even fringe, notions about the
cause of Alzheimer’s.
“The whole field recognizes
now that we needto have a
broader perspective — that
amyloid therapies aren’t likely to
be the complete answer,” said Dr.
Sudha Seshadri, of University of
Texas Health San Antonio.
Ruth Itzhaki, a researcher at
the University of Manchester in
the United Kingdom, has long
suspected an infection — herpes
simplex, specifically — could be
the real culprit. The virus is
common enough to infect a huge
proportion of the population and
can lie dormant for years. Itzhaki
uALZHEIMER'S
ContinuedfromPageD1
has found some correlations
between people who are infected
with HSV1 and who have APOE4,
a gene carried by about 1 in 5
people that is considered a strong
risk factor for Alzheimer’s.
Her work has been
controversial; she said she has
“met huge resistance” since she
began it in 1989. “It was awful,
quite dreadful,” she said.
Itzhaki was invited to a debate
at AAIC about whether infection
could play a role. It was the first
time her work was given that kind
of spotlight. And it came at a time
when there’s a clinical trial
underway at ColumbiaUniversity
to test antivirals in patients with
dementia.
“Only now is this infection
theory getting respectability,” she
said.
Hodes agreed: “People thought
it was unreasonable, crazy, had no
evidence,” he said of the viral
theory. “But the level of evidence
has reacheda point where we
think it’s important to research.”
Itzhaki’s wasn’t the only non-
amyloid news attracting attention
at AAIC. Other researchers are
focused on the tau theory — that
is, that accumulations of the
protein tau somehow cause
Alzheimer’s.
A new Vanderbilt University
study found that the way tau
gathers in the brain differs
between genders and could help
explain why two-thirds of
Alzheimer’s patients are women.
Another study, fromthe
University of California San Diego,
showed that women metabolize
glucose in the brain differently.
Some researchers are focusing
on how lifestyle: A study showed
that physical exercise, not
smoking, eating a balanced diet,
stimulating one’s brain, and
avoiding excessive alcohol play a
massiverole in dementia
prevention. Abidingby four of the
five healthy lifestyle factors cuts
dementia risk by 60 percent.
But it’s not as simple as it
sounds: Exercise has, in some
patients with mild dementia, been
found to actually worsen
symptoms— presumably because
the extra energy expended turned
out to be a stressor. Seshadri said
patients might benefit more from
simply not being sedentary.
But there’s no one-size-fits-all
approach — even when it comes
to diet and exercise.
More than 3,000 scientific
studies were presented at themeeting. About 1,200 focused on
diagnosis and prognosis, largely
zeroing in on biomarkers that can
be used to track progression of the
disease. Another 1,200 centered
on basic science and public
health. Just over 300 abstracts
tracked therapeutics in preclinical
and clinical study.
The hope, of course, is that
biomarkers could be translated
into new drug targets — and help
inform clinical trial design, so the
right patients are given the right
therapies. In the meantime, the
field may be closer than ever to a
blood-based diagnostic tool.
Currently, the only way to detect
amyloid buildup is through PET
imaging or extracting
cerebrospinalfluid.
“Our goal is to have a clinical
diagnostic tool in the next five
years,” said Dr. Akinori
Nakamura, a researcher at theNational Center for Geriatrics and
Gerontology in Japan, whose
team led the study of a blood test
based on amyloid. “If we can find
a therapeutic drug, then, perfect.
But if not, we can use diagnostic
tools to delay the onset of
Alzheimer’s disease with other
interventions — daily exercise, for
instance.”
The trick is that Alzheimer’s is
only one condition in a family of
complex dementia-causing
diseases.
“The lifetime risk of dementia
is 1 in 5,” Seshadrisaid.
“Something that affects such a
large proportion of people is
unlikely to have the same
pathology in everybody.”
Perhaps it will take a
combination of an amyloid-
targeting drug, and a tau-
targeting drug, and maybe
something else entirely.Precision medicine,
particularly as it’s used in cancer,
may also proveimportant.
Seshadi said that antisense
oligonucleotides — similar to
Spinraza, the drugBiogen
developed to treat rare spinal
muscular atrophy — could be
particularly promising. Like SMA,
Alzheimer’s results in protein
buildup in the brain. Spinraza
targets the gene SMN2that causes
the disease; perhaps, once the
genetics of dementia are better
understood, such targeted
treatments could work, too.
“We’re not going to just give
one drugto everybody,” Seshadi
said. “It’s going to be, ‘Which is
going to be the right molecule for
an individual?’”MeghanaKeshavancanbe
reachedat
[email protected].Dementia therapies
still prove elusive
NATIONALINSTITUTES OF HEALTHVIA ASSOCIATED PRESSRecent
researchoffers
cluesabout
why womenare
morelikely
thanmento
develop
Alzheimer’s.
Butthe
disease’s root
causesarenot
understood.
Above,a
microscope
imageshows
human
chromosomes.SAMUELCORUM/NEW YORKTIMES