Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Of Course Trump’s Tariffs Hurt U.S. Manufacturing

Protectionism isn’t helping its intended beneficiaries, new research shows.

January 27, 2020 at 5:30 AM EST

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

Nobody wins.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

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It’s common for advocates of protectionism to argue that while trade restrictions may not be good for the economy as a whole, they are needed to bolster some important national interest. In the U.S., the debate over President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports has largely been conducted on these terms — that his trade war would help manufacturing workers who had been neglected by trade-supporting “elites,” even if it increased consumer prices and slowed investment spending and overall economic growth.

But the latest evidence suggests that the manufacturing industry isn’t benefiting from the trade war.

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