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manufacturing
Trump Tariffs Ruled Illegal—Again—as Data Shows Promised Manufacturing Boom Is Nonexistent
"The average household has already had nearly $2,000 stolen from them by this administration, and they should not have to pay a penny more," said one House Democrat.
May 08, 2026
A panel of federal judges ruled Thursday that US President Donald Trump's sweeping 10% tariffs on most imports are unlawful, another major legal blow to the centerpiece of the Republican president's economic agenda—which has failed to produce the manufacturing boom he repeatedly promised on the campaign trail.
The Court of International Trade (CIT) found in a 2-to-1 ruling that Trump violated the law when he unilaterally enacted the 10% import taxes following a February decision by the US Supreme Court, which struck down tariffs the president imposed using emergency powers. But the CIT's ruling, which the Trump administration is expected to appeal, only barred collection of the tariffs from some of the plaintiffs in the case—including a pair of businesses and Washington state—limiting the ruling's immediate impact.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a member of the House Trade Subcommittee, applauded the new ruling in a statement, saying that "Trump must comply with the law by ending his illegal tax on the American people and getting families and small businesses the refunds they are owed."
"The Supreme Court already rebuked the president's costly tariffs, but Donald Trump sees our Constitution as a mere suggestion to follow, and not the law of the land,” said Larson. “As families are squeezed by sky-high grocery bills and gas prices, his latest round of tariffs is only pouring salt in the wound. The average household has already had nearly $2,000 stolen from them by this administration, and they should not have to pay a penny more."
The decision came as a new analysis of trade and manufacturing data from the first quarter of 2026 found that the president's "actions on trade have not delivered on his promises to quickly balance trade and revitalize US manufacturing." Since Trump's return to the White House last year, US manufacturing employment has declined by 82,000 jobs, according to the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project.
Additionally, the nation's trade deficit was higher during the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2024, Rethink Trade found.
“The first-quarter 2026 data show President Trump’s promises to prioritize speedily cutting the trade deficit and create more American manufacturing jobs are getting undermined by his chaotic and often mistargeted use of tariffs and squandering of leverage to demand other countries gut their Big Tech anti-monopoly and other policies instead of mercantilist abuses fueling the trade deficit,” said Lori Wallach, Rethink Trade's director.
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'A Declaration of War Against the Working Class': Sanders Demands Bezos Testify Over AI Robot Plan
"Our job is to ensure that this new technology benefits working families and is not simply used as another tool to make the wealthiest people in the world unimaginably richer."
Mar 24, 2026
Sen. Bernie Sanders is demanding that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos testify about plans to use robots powered by artificial intelligence to replace human workers.
In a Monday announcement, Sanders (I-Vt.) cited a report published by The Wall Street Journal outlining Bezos' ambitions "to raise $100 billion for a new fund that would buy up manufacturing companies and seek to use AI technology to accelerate their path to automation."
The Journal obtained investor documents describing the new Bezos initiative as a "manufacturing transformation vehicle" that would buy up firms in key industries such as chipmaking, defense, and aerospace, and use AI to boost the efficiency of their operations.
Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, warned that such a plan would risk putting millions of blue-collar manufacturing workers out of jobs.
Because of this, he asked Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chairman of the HELP Committee, to demand that Bezos testify about his new project’s impact on the working class.
"We must demand that Mr. Bezos come before our committee to explain to the American people why he believes it’s a good idea to replace millions of American workers with robots,” Sanders said. "We need to understand what will happen to these workers... will they simply be thrown out on the street in order to make Mr. Bezos even richer?"
Sanders emphasized the vital role of government in ensuring that advancements in technology are not used to further impoverish workers and erode their collective bargaining power.
"Our job is to ensure that this new technology benefits working families and is not simply used as another tool to make the wealthiest people in the world unimaginably richer," Sanders said. "The American people are increasingly apprehensive about the impact that AI and robotics will have on the economy and their lives. Congress needs to act."
In a separate social media post, Sanders described Bezos' plan as "a declaration of war against the working class."
Sanders for months has been raising alarms about the impact of AI on the global working class and democracy itself.
In December, Sanders called upon the US to impose a nationwide moratorium on the construction of AI data centers, warning of a future envisioned by tech moguls such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who has said that humans won’t be needed "for most things" thanks to advancements in AI.
"Do you believe that these guys, these multibillionaires, are staying up at night, worrying about what AI and robotics will do to working families of our country and the world?" Sanders asked. "Well, I don’t think so.”
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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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