Do tariffs protect U.S. jobs and industry? Economists say no

President Donald Trump has spoken of tariffs as a job-creating behemoth.

Tariffs will “create jobs like we have never seen before,” Trump said Tuesday during a joint session of Congress.

Economists disagree.

In fact, the tariff policies Trump has pursued since taking office would likely have the opposite effect, they said.

“It costs American jobs,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s.

He categorized tariffs imposed broadly as a “lose-lose.”

“There are no winners here in the trade war we’re seemingly being engulfed in,” Zandi said. 

The Trump administration has announced a barrage of tariffs since Inauguration Day.

Trump has imposed an additional duty of 20% on all imports from China. He put 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, the U.S.’ two biggest trade partners. (Just days after those took effect, the president delayed levies on some products for a month.)

Tariffs of 25% on steel and aluminum are set to take effect Wednesday, while duties on copper and lumber and reciprocal tariffs on all U.S. trade partners could be coming in the not-too-distant future.

There’s a deceptively simple logic to the protective power of such economic policy.

Tariffs generally aim to help U.S. companies compete more effectively with foreign competitors, by making it more expensive for companies to source products from overseas. U.S. products look more favorable, thereby lending support to domestic industry and jobs.

There’s some evidence of such benefits for targeted industries.

For example, steel tariffs during Trump’s first term reduced imports of steel from other nations by 24%, on average, over 2018 to 2021, according to a 2023 report by the U.S. International Trade Commission. They also raised U.S. steel prices and domestic production by about 2% each, the report said.

New steel tariffs set to take effect March 12 would also “likely boost” steel prices, Shannon O’Neil and Julia Huesa, researchers at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in February.

Higher prices would likely benefit U.S. producers and add jobs to the steel industry’s current headcount, around 140,000, they said.

While tariffs’ protection may “relieve” struggling U.S. industries, it comes with a cost, Lydia Cox, an assistant economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and international trade expert, wrote in a 2022 paper.

Tariffs create higher input costs for other industries, making them “vulnerable” to foreign competition, Cox wrote.

These spillover effects hurt other sectors of the economy, ultimately costing jobs, economists said.  

Take steel, for example.

Steel tariffs raise production costs for the manufacturing sector…