Writing in an op-ed for The Hill, PPI Founder and President Will Marshall highlights the problems with President Trump’s use of tariffs to attempt a restructuring of the world’s economy.
The president can sign all the executive orders he pleases, but he can’t throw history into reverse or repeal basic economics.
Marshall points out that Americans “aren’t buying MAGAnomics.”
Consumer confidence has plummeted to a 12-year low, with families cutting back on spending in anticipation of a return to high living costs.
Investors are rattled too. By mid-March, the stock market had lost more than $3 trillion since Trump took office — the equivalent of 10 percent of America’s $30 trillion GDP.
In a recent YouGov poll, 61 percent of voters said tariffs hurt average working people, while just 14 percent said they would help.
And takes on Trump’s attempt to return manufacturing jobs to America.
The president apparently sees tariffs as a form of reparations for working Americans. But the culprit isn’t trade or globalization or “neoliberalism.” It’s the emergence of a post-industrial economy shaped mainly by technological change, rising education levels and growing demand for services.
Factory employment has declined in all advanced countries, even manufacturing powerhouses like Germany and Japan. But thanks to tech-driven productivity gains, U.S. manufacturing output has increased by more than 60 percent since 1999, even as our factory workforce has contracted by about 25 percent.
The U.S., like most other high-income countries, has evolved into a predominantly service-based economy. Services account for 80 percent of non-farm jobs. Even if more factories sprout up here, job gains are likely to be modest due to automation.
In fact, since Trump’s first set of tariffs, manufacturing employment has stagnated, up by only 30,000 since 2018, compared to 400,000 in the second Obama term.
And with over half a million manufacturing jobs open over the last five years, blue-collar workers themselves appear ambivalent about factory careers.
A 2023 YouGov poll commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute asked non-college workers where they think their children will find the best jobs and careers. Most (44 percent) choose the communications and digital economy, while just 13 percent picked manufacturing.