Theoretically, it is obvious that President Donald Trump’s tariffs won’t restore American economic competitiveness, won’t bring back the glory days of American manufacturing and will ultimately just hurt U.S. consumers. Now, real-world evidence is now mounting.
No doubt, tariffs imposed by the president are already undermining the American economy.
Independent analyses confirm this. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates that, on balance, under Trump’s imposed and threatened tariffs, the American economy could lose on net 820,000 jobs. The tariffs also hit the capital stock and Gross Domestic Product by nearly a percentage point, while having no net favorable impact on total wages.
We’re starting to see this play out. Under President Trump’s watch, manufacturing jobs have continued to decline, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
An analysis from the Center for American Progress notes, “In August 2025, the manufacturing sector lost 12,000 jobs, a total loss of 42,000 jobs since April 2025. Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariff announcement on April 2 ignited the contraction of the manufacturing sector in 2025.”
This makes complete sense once you think about it. While the president’s tariffs are ostensibly intended to protect and promote domestic manufacturing, the fact is that tariffs have consequences. While tariffs on steel imports, for example, may give a boost to American steel mills, they hurt manufacturers that have relied on lower-cost inputs.
Republicans and conservatives who grasp the unintended consequences of well-intentioned but misguided policies like rent control and wage mandates should recognize that the same distortions apply here.
Republicans may cheer tariffs because they think they’re supporting American workers, but they’re making the same mistake as the well-meaning socialist who thinks rent control means housing will suddenly be cheaper.
The American Enterprise Institute has recently issued a report on the president’s tariffs making clear that they simply can’t do what tariff supporters think they can or will do.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Ye Zhang note, “there is no going back to the ‘golden years’ of the 1960s when manufacturing jobs accounted for 27 percent of the labor force. Even extreme tariffs that eliminated the US trade deficit in manufactures would increase manufacturing jobs to only about 10 percent of the labor force.”
Of course, that would come at great expense. “[The] cost to American purchasers of manufactured goods per manufacturing job created by tariff protection will be high, at least $225,000 annually per job-year for an indefinite period. More realistic calculations, with a tariff pass-through coefficient of 1.0, indicate a cost of $550,000 annually per job-year,” they write.
With Congress unwilling to do its job and rein in the president’s tariff spree, we can only hope the courts ultimately spike many of his tariffs. In that time, we hope Republicans can rediscover their old commitments to free markets, limits on presidential power and skepticism of tax increases.