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'Tariffs Haven't Helped': 72,000 Manufacturing Jobs—and Counting—Obliterated Since Trump's Liberation Day
“There’s very little in our product portfolio that has benefited from tariffs,” said the CEO of one North Carolina-based steel product company.
Feb 03, 2026
US President Donald Trump pledged that the manufacturing industry would come "roaring back into our country" after what he called "Liberation Day" last April, which was marked by the announcement of sweeping tariffs on imported goods—a policy that has shifted constantly in the past 10 months as Trump has changed rates, canceled tariffs, and threatened new ones.
But after promising to turn around economic trends that have developed over decades—the shipping of jobs overseas, automation, and the obliteration of towns and cities that had once been manufacturing centers—Trump's trade policy appears to have put any progress achieved in the sector in recent years "in reverse," as the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Federal data shows that in each of the eight months that followed Trump's Liberation Day tariffs, manufacturing companies reduced their workforce, with a total of 72,000 jobs in the industry lost since April 2025.
The Census Bureau also estimates that construction spending in the manufacturing industry contracted in the first nine months of Trump's second term, after surging during the Biden administration due to investments in renewable energy and semiconductor chips.
"But the tariffs haven’t helped," said Hanson.
Trump has insisted that his tariff policy would force companies to manufacture goods domestically to avoid paying more for foreign materials—just as he has claimed consumers would see lower prices.
But numerous analyses have shown American families are paying more, not less, for essentials like groceries as companies have passed on their higher operating costs to consumers, and federal data has made clear that companies are also avoiding investing in labor since Trump introduced the tariffs—while the trade war the president has kicked off hasn't changed the realities faced by many manufacturing sectors.
"While tariffs do reduce import competition, they can also increase the cost of key components for domestic manufacturers," wrote Emma Ockerman at Yahoo Finance. "Take US electric vehicle plants that rely on batteries made with rare earth elements imported from overseas, for instance. Some parts simply aren’t made in the United States."
At the National Interest, Ryan Mulholland of the Center for American Progress wrote that Trump's tariffs have created "three overlapping challenges" for US businesses.
"The imported components and materials needed to produce goods domestically now cost more—in some cases, a lot more," wrote Mulholland. "Foreign buyers are now looking elsewhere, often to protest Trump’s global belligerence, costing US firms market share abroad that will be difficult to win back. And if bad policy wasn’t enough, US manufacturers must also contend with the Trump administration’s unpredictability, which has made long-term investment decisions nearly impossible. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that small business bankruptcies have surged to their highest level in years."
Trump's unpredictable threats of new tariffs and his retreats on the policy, as with European countries in recent weeks when he said he would impose new levies on countries that didn't support his push to take control of Greenland, have also led to "a lost year for investment" for many firms, along with the possibility that the US Supreme Court could soon rule against the president's tariffs.
“If Trump just picked a number—whatever it was, 10% or 15% to 20%—we might all say it’s bad, I’d say it’s bad, I think most economists would say it’s bad,” Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told Yahoo Finance. “But the worst thing is there’s no certainty about it.”
Constantly changing tariff rates make it "very difficult for businesses... to plan," said Baker. “I think you’ve had a lot of businesses curtail investment plans because they just don’t know whether the plans will make sense.”
While US manufacturers have struggled to compete globally, China and other countries have continued exporting their goods.
“There’s very little in our product portfolio that has benefited from tariffs,” H.O. Woltz III, chief executive of North Carolina-based Insteel Industries, told the Wall Street Journal.
US Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) noted Monday that the data on manufacturing job losses comes a week after Vice President JD Vance visited his home state to tout "record job growth."
"Here’s the reality: Families face higher costs, tariffs are costing manufacturing jobs, and over $200 million in approved federal infrastructure and manufacturing investments here were cut by this administration," said Kaptur. "Ohio deserves better."
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Trump Economy 'Stalling Out' as Unemployment Rate Hits Highest Level in 4 Years
"Trump may give himself an A++++ on the economy, but these latest jobs numbers are failing working families."
Dec 16, 2025
Federal data belatedly released Tuesday shows that the US unemployment rate rose to the highest level in four years last month as President Donald Trump's administration continues its assault on the government's workforce and American corporations lay off workers at a level not seen in decades.
The unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November, up from 4.4% in September, according to the Labor Department report, whose release was delayed due to the recent government shutdown.
US employers added 64,000 jobs last month following the loss of 105,000 jobs in October, fueled by the Trump administration's large-scale layoffs of federal workers. The manufacturing sector, which Trump has promised to bolster with his tariff regime, shed 5,000 jobs in November, according to the newly published federal data.
Over the past six months, the US has averaged just 17,000 jobs added per month—a number that underscored concerns about the frailty of Trump's economy.
"Today’s long-awaited jobs report confirms what we already suspected: Trump’s economy is stalling out and American workers are paying the price," said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative. "Far from sparking a manufacturing renaissance, Trump’s reckless trade agenda is bleeding working-class jobs, forcing layoffs, and raising prices for businesses and consumers alike. Trump may give himself an A++++ on the economy, but these latest jobs numbers are failing working families.”
Another notable trend in today's payroll release is the gradual slowdown in nominal wage growth. As the unemployment rate rises, workers struggle to find jobs and have less leverage when it comes to demand higher wages. Both indicate a slowdown in affordability for workers and their families.
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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) Dec 16, 2025 at 10:17 AM
The new figures were released after Trump kicked off a tour of battleground states in an effort to defend his economic policies, which voters—including many of the president's own—increasingly blame for driving up prices. Trump and White House officials have insisted, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, that the US economy is stronger than it's ever been.
Julie Su, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and former acting head of the Labor Department, said Tuesday that "for months, Donald Trump and his administration have been hiding data about the economy, leaving workers and employers in the dark when trying to make critical hiring decisions."
"But you can’t hide the reality every American knows," said Su. "An economy where costs are too high for people to afford the basic necessities and also can’t find jobs is an economic crisis that requires massive change so that working people can actually come out on top."
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Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda Could Kill 400,000 Direct Care Jobs in US: Report
A new analysis warns the president's assault on immigrants risks setting off "a cascading crisis in senior and disability care that will harm families across the economic spectrum."
Dec 15, 2025
An analysis released Monday provides a more focused look at the economic impacts of US President Donald Trump's lawless mass deportation agenda, estimating that his administration's policies could kill nearly 400,000 jobs in the direct care industry, which employs home health aides, nursing assistants, and others.
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis shows that if the Trump administration achieves its stated goal of deporting one million people per year over the next four years, "the direct care industry would lose close to 400,000 jobs—affecting 274,000 immigrant and 120,000 US-born workers."
"This dramatic reduction in trained care workers would compromise home-based care services, forcing family members to scramble for informal arrangements to support relatives who are older or have disabilities," wrote EPI's Ben Zipperer, the author of the new analysis.
The estimate builds on earlier EPI research warning that Trump's deportation policies could destroy nearly 6 million total jobs in the US, an economic impact that comes in addition to the pain and human rights abuses inflicted on families across the country.
So far, according to the Department of Homeland Security, the administration is on pace for fewer than 700,000 deportations by the end of 2025—well short of its goal.
But it's not for lack of trying: In recent months, masked agents have been rampaging through American cities and detaining people en masse, often targeting job sites. Immigration agents have reportedly been instructed to prioritize "quantity over quality," leading to the detention of mostly people with no criminal convictions.
"Rather than creating jobs for U.S.-born workers as proponents claim," he added, "mass deportations eliminate employment opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike."
Recent research indicates that Trump's mass deportations are harming local economies across the US. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted in August that "the early warning signs show a growing labor shortage, rising prices, terrified employees, and employers left in the lurch without any tools to ensure workforce stability."
"Should these operations continue unabated over the next three and a half years," he continued, "the situation could become far worse for the nation as a whole."
Zipperer wrote Monday that the direct care sector is "highly vulnerable to these enforcement actions," as it "relies heavily on immigrant labor."
"The Trump administration’s deportation agenda threatens to trigger a cascading crisis in senior and disability care that will harm families across the economic spectrum," Zipperer warned. "If the direct care workforce contracts by nearly 400,000 workers due to deportations, millions of older adults and people with disabilities will be left without the professional assistance they need to remain safely in their homes."
"Rather than creating jobs for U.S.-born workers as proponents claim," he added, "mass deportations eliminate employment opportunities for citizens and immigrants alike while dismantling a care infrastructure that seniors, people with disabilities, and families depend on."
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