Consumer products makers have issued a health and safety alert over rising world trade tensions, warning that tariffs will make goods ranging from life jackets to cleaning chemicals prohibitively expensive.

Business leaders argued Americans would be discouraged from buying life-saving equipment and resort to less safe alternatives if US President Donald Trump followed through on a threat to slap 25 per cent levies on a further $300bn worth of Chinese imports.

So far corporate America has centred its anti-tariff lobbying largely on economic arguments. Hundreds of companies and trade associations, including the retailers Walmart and Target, put their names to a recent letter that warned the proposed duties would cause the loss of 2m jobs and reduce US economic output by 1 per cent.