By Anthony DeBarros and Josh Zumbrun 

WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-China trade conflict is moving closer to home.

Consumer items, largely spared by existing tariffs on Chinese imports, would face 25% levies under the Trump administration's plan targeting $300 billion of Chinese goods that haven't yet been taxed.

On Monday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is due to open seven days of hearings on the new tariffs to solicit public comment, ending June 25. That is to be followed by a one-week period for submission of written comments, after which President Trump could direct the office to impose the new tariffs.

The biggest targets would be mobile phones and laptops, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 2018 Census Bureau data on the more than 3,800 categories of goods on which the U.S. has proposed new tariffs. The U.S. imported $43 billion in mobile phones last year from China, and $37 billion in laptops, data shows.

Other major categories facing the looming possibility of tariffs: $11.9 billion of children's vehicles like tricycles and scooters, $5.4 billion of videogame consoles and $4.6 billion of computer monitors.

To a large extent, these major items are almost entirely imported from China -- the source of 82% of mobile phone imports, 94% of laptops, 85% of tricycles and scooters and 98% of videogame consoles.

The new round of tariffs would also hit $27.7 billion of apparel and clothing accessories, $14.1 billion of footwear, a total of $26.7 billion of toys, games and sports equipment and $2.3 billion of books.

The tariffs would be assessed to U.S. importers, who must pay 25% of the value of their imports to Customs and Border Protection. For example, the $43 billion in mobile-phone imports would be assessed $10.8 billion tariffs. Economists have found that in the previous rounds of tariffs the costs have been passed on almost entirely to consumers.

Chinese businesses would also suffer as the tariffs effectively make their goods more expensive, prompting American importers to cut their volume of imports or look elsewhere, when they can, for the goods.

In the hearings, companies will have a chance to make the case that the U.S. Trade Representative shouldn't move forward. Much of American industry is united in opposition to tariffs of this extent, led by major business groups like the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce, which are urging the Trump administration not to return to talks rather than carry through its threat. The administration has said the tariffs are warranted because China has moved too slowly in making a deal.

At a recent briefing with reporters, Cummins Inc. chief executive Tom Lineberger -- who chairs the Business Roundtable's trade committee -- said the burden of new tariffs will largely fall on U.S. companies.

"What you have now is a situation where U.S. companies are paying significant tax burden now from tariffs," said Mr. Linebarger, whose company imports small diesel engines from its manufacturing plants in China. "We're the one paying the Chinese import tariffs now."

The tariffs are assessed via a complex system of tens of thousands of eight-digit and 10-digit codes that specify categories of commodities and finished products. The value of these categories has been estimated for this article using 2018 trade values, and the names of the categories are simplified to those familiar to consumers.

Only a few relatively narrow categories of items avoided the threat of all four rounds of tariffs. The eight- and 10-digit codes can be aggregated into 96 two-digit classification codes used for imports. Of these two-digit codes, pharmaceutical products are the only category to entirely avoid tariffs.

In total, about $16.8 billion a year of goods are being spared from any tariffs, as well as $7 billion of items that use special classification provisions. In addition to pharmaceuticals, the goods exempted consist almost entirely of chemicals, rare metals and medical supplies.

The U.S. Trade Representative can remove items from the list after receiving testimony and written public comments. The agency has done so sparingly -- in the second round of tariffs last year it initially proposed tariffs on 6,031 different items, but after the comment period, it removed 297 of those items before completing the list.

The final steps in the tariff process will coincide with a gathering of the heads of state of the Group of 20 economies in Osaka, Japan, at the end of June. The summit includes the leaders of the world's largest economies and Mr. Trump and China's President Xi Jinping would typically attend.

The two leaders may meet in Osaka as part of a high-profile effort to revive trade talks that reached an impasse in May. The last time the two leaders reached a trade truce, at the 2018 summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Buenos Aires, they refrained from hitting each other with any tariffs for over 6 months, until last month's breakdown led to the return of tariff escalation.

Write to Josh Zumbrun at Josh.Zumbrun@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 16, 2019 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)