Udit Misra writes: Did Trump’s tariffs help manufacturing jobs in the US?

Donald Trump’s fascination with the use of tariffs during his second term as the US President has redefined the global order. By slapping punitive tariffs — which he called “reciprocal” in nature — on both US allies and adversaries, Trump has forced every country to move in two opposite directions at the same time. As such, while countries have been forced to look for closer trade alignment amongst each other, they have also felt compelled to turn insular and attempt to reduce their dependence on global trade flows. India is a good example, in that it has tried to push for self-reliance in its domestic Budget while concluding as many, and often long-pending, trade agreements as possible. On the face of it, Trump imposed tariffs because he wanted to wipe out the US trade deficit — the gap between what the US pays for its imports and what it earns from its exports of goods; to be sure, this deficit in the US case was close to a trillion dollars. But the deficit was only the accounting aspect of the problem. The final goal of imposing tariffs was to turn the US into a manufacturing powerhouse. Trump repeatedly underscored how the US’s share of global manufacturing slid over the past five decades. This January, Trump completed his first full year in office. Based on the evidence so far, did Trump’s tariffs boost manufacturing in the US? If one goes by what the US president has said over the past year, his tariffs have forced global multinational companies to start the process of investing in new manufacturing capacities in the US. However, data on manufacturing sector jobs, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), paints a starkly different picture. As the CHART shows, the total number of people employed in manufacturing in the US as of December 2025 was 12.69 million. This is 68,000 fewer jobs compared to December 2024. In fact, jobs in US manufacturing have been coming down in a secular fashion since February 2023, when there were 12.9 million employed in US manufacturing. Two decades ago, there were 14.2 million employed in US manufacturing. This continued fall in the number of people employed in the US manufacturing is likely to be a crucial argument against the efficacy and desirability of Trump’s tariffs as the US political system gets into the campaign mode for the midterm elections of the US Congress this November. There is a slight silver lining in the data for Trump, however. The same set of data from BLS also shows that weekly wages in manufacturing have gone up from $1,385 in December 2024 to $1,439 in December 2025. That’s an increase of around 4% at a time when the consumer price inflation has gone by a little less than 3%. Udit Misra is Senior Associate Editor at The Indian Express. Misra has reported on the Indian economy and policy landscape for the past two decades. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and is a Chevening South Asia Journalism Fellow from the University of Westminster. Misra is known for explanatory journalism and is a trusted voice among readers not just for simplifying complex economic concepts but also making sense of economic news both in India and abroad. Professional Focus He writes three regular columns for the publication. ExplainSpeaking: A weekly explanatory column that answers the most important questions surrounding the economic and policy developments. GDP (Graphs, Data, Perspectives): Another weekly column that uses interesting charts and data to provide perspective on an issue dominating the news during the week. Book, Line & Thinker: A fortnightly column that for reviewing books, both new and old. Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025) His recent work focuses heavily on the weakening Indian Rupee, the global impact of U.S. economic policy under Donald Trump, and long-term domestic growth projections: Currency and Macroeconomics: "GDP: Anatomy of rupee weakness against the dollar" (Dec 19, 2025) — Investigating why the Rupee remains weak despite India's status as a fast-growing economy. "GDP: Amid the rupee's fall, how investors are shunning the Indian economy" (Dec 5, 2025). "Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2025: How the winners explained economic growth" (Oct 13, 2025). Global Geopolitics and Trade: "Has the US already lost to China? Trump's policies and the shifting global order" (Dec 8, 2025). "The Great Sanctions Hack: Why economic sanctions don't work the way we expect" (Nov 23, 2025) — Based on former RBI Governor Urjit Patel's new book. "ExplainSpeaking: How Trump's tariffs have run into an affordability crisis" (Nov 20, 2025). Domestic Policy and Data: "GDP: New labour codes and opportunity for India's weakest states" (Nov 28, 2025). "ExplainSpeaking | Piyush Goyal says India will be a $30 trillion economy in 25 years: Decoding the projections" (Oct 30, 2025) — A critical look at the feasibility of high-growth targets. "GDP: Examining latest GST collections, and where different states stand" (Nov 7, 2025). International Economic Comparisons: "GDP: What ails Germany, world's third-largest economy, and how it could grow" (Nov 14, 2025). "On the loss of Europe's competitive edge" (Oct 17, 2025). Signature Style Udit Misra is known his calm, data-driven, explanation-first economics journalism. He avoids ideological posturing, and writes with the aim of raising the standard of public discourse by providing readers with clarity and understanding of the ground realities. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @ieuditmisra ... Read More