The Federal Reserve conducted a study and concluded Trump’s tariffs fueled job loss throughout the ailing manufacturing industry and increased input costs. In 2016, Trump campaigned on saving and creating manufacturing jobs.
For the first two years of his presidency, manufacturing created has created about 440,000 jobs. But, in 2019, the industry has remained rather stagnant mainly because of Trump’s Tariff War.
“Trump has fallen short of his goal,” says Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which promotes policies aimed at bolstering manufacturers. He says tariffs on China could have been effective if Trump had persuaded other countries to impose them as well.
USA Today:
The Federal Reserve findings claim the industry has plunged deeper into a recession. Another study finds 2019 was one of the decade’s worst years for job cuts in the US.
The Fed study, published December 23, explains how tariffs implemented in 2018 fueled job loss and increased input costs across US manufacturers. While the duties did provide some benefits to domestic firms, the negative effects outweighed the positive ones and harmed an already-ailing sector, the Fed wrote.
“For manufacturing employment, a small boost from the import protection effect of tariffs is more than offset by larger drags from the effects of rising input costs and retaliatory tariffs. For producer prices, the effect of tariffs is mediated solely through rising input costs.”
-Aaron Flaaen and Justin Pierce
