Text Content
Skip to contentSkip to site index
Search & Section Navigation
Section Navigation
SEARCH
Politics
SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEKLog in
Friday, February 2, 2024
Today’s Paper
SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEK
Politics|Trump’s Tariffs Hurt U.S. Jobs but Swayed American Voters, Study Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/us/politics/trump-tariffs-jobs-voters.html
* Share full articleShare free access
*
*
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
You have been granted access, use your keyboard to continue reading.
Supported by
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
TRUMP’S TARIFFS HURT U.S. JOBS BUT SWAYED AMERICAN VOTERS, STUDY SAYS
New research finds that former President Donald J. Trump’s tariffs did not bring
back U.S. jobs, but voters appeared to reward him for the levies anyway.
* Share full articleShare free access
*
*
* Read in app
American farmers who exported soybeans, cotton and sorghum to China were hit
particularly hard by Beijing’s decision to impose retaliatory
tariffs.Credit...Rory Doyle for The New York Times
By Ana Swanson
Ana Swanson has covered trade policy under the Trump and Biden administrations.
Feb. 2, 2024, 5:03 a.m. ET
Get it sent to your inbox.
The sweeping tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on China and
other American trading partners were simultaneously a political success and an
economic failure, a new study suggests. That’s because the levies won over
voters for the Republican Party even though they did not bring back jobs.
The nonpartisan working paper examines monthly data on U.S. employment by
industry to find that the tariffs that Mr. Trump placed on foreign metals,
washing machines and an array of goods from China starting in 2018 neither
raised nor lowered the overall number of jobs in the affected industries.
But the tariffs did incite other countries to impose their own retaliatory
tariffs on American products, making them more expensive to sell overseas, and
those levies had a negative effect on American jobs, the paper finds. That was
particularly true in agriculture: Farmers who exported soybeans, cotton and
sorghum to China were hit by Beijing’s decision to raise tariffs on those
products to as much as 25 percent.
The Trump administration aimed to offset those losses by offering financial
support for farmers, ultimately giving out $23 billion in 2018 and 2019. But
those funds were distributed unevenly, a government assessment found, and the
economists say those subsidies only partially mitigated the harm that had been
caused by the tariffs.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The findings contradict Mr. Trump’s claims that his tariffs helped to reverse
some of the damage done by competition from China and bring back American
manufacturing jobs that had gone overseas. The economists conclude that the
aggregate effect on U.S. jobs of the three measures — the original tariffs,
retaliatory tariffs and subsidies granted to farmers — were “at best a wash, and
it may have been mildly negative.”
“Certainly you can reject the hypothesis that this tariff policy was very
successful at bringing back jobs to those industries that got a lot of exposure
to that tariff war,” one of the study authors, David Dorn of the University of
Zurich, said in an interview.
THE STATE OF JOBS IN THE UNITED STATES
* Too Few Workers: Employers in Vermont are battling a labor shortage as the
local population grows older. The state’s struggles offer an early look at
where the rest of the country could be headed.
* Seasonal Hiring: After scrambling to fill out work forces the last few
holiday seasons, many retailers are reporting more modest goals for temporary
employment this year.
* Truck Drivers: The trucking industry has complained for years about a dire
shortage of drivers. But some women say many companies have made it
effectively impossible for them to get those jobs.
* A Surge in Start-ups: The Covid-19 pandemic hurt the U.S. economy in a lot of
ways. But it might have also broken America out of a decades-long
entrepreneurial slump.
Even so, the researchers’ work suggests that aggressive tariffs on foreign
products were a political success for Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
Drawing from data on vote counts for presidential and congressional elections,
the study suggests that people living in areas affected by the tariffs —
particularly the Midwest, the area around the Great Lakes, and the South —
became more likely to vote to re-elect Mr. Trump in 2020. They also became less
likely to identify as Democrats, and more likely to elect Republicans to
Congress, according to the paper.
Those political beliefs were not entirely immune to economic effects: Republican
electoral gains were stronger in locations where tariffs and subsidies had a
more positive effect on the job market. And the retaliatory tariffs that other
countries imposed in response to Mr. Trump’s levies did weaken support for
Republicans, but only modestly, the paper said.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Still, the economists speculate that voters in areas that were hit hard by
economic competition from China in past decades may have valued the tariffs “as
a sign of political solidarity,” rather than for the actual consequences they
had on jobs.
“People react very positively, positively from a Republican point of view, to
import protection of their local industry,” Mr. Dorn said, “but they don’t
punish Republicans that much if their location gets exposed to retaliatory
tariffs.”
Our politics reporters. Times journalists are not allowed to endorse or campaign
for candidates or political causes. That includes participating in rallies and
donating money to a candidate or cause.
Learn more about our process.
In addition to Mr. Dorn, the study’s authors are David Autor of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Anne Beck of the World Bank and Gordon H.
Hanson of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Mr. Autor, Mr. Dorn and Mr. Hanson have conducted influential research on “the
China shock,” which quantified how much China’s joining the World Trade
Organization had reduced U.S. manufacturing employment. Their later work
examined how those job losses have influenced political trends in the U.S.
heartland, including leading to political polarization and increased Republican
support.
Mr. Dorn said that the American economy was growing strongly during the trade
war, which may have influenced voters’ perceptions of the effects that tariffs
had. “It’s the famous, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’” he said.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
“It is very, very difficult for people to sort of fully isolate why the economy
is going well,” Mr. Dorn added. “Is the economy going well because of some
particular government policy, or is the economy going well despite the
government policy?”
The findings come as Mr. Trump is promising even more aggressive trade measures
as a candidate in 2024. Mr. Trump has proclaimed his previous tariffs a success
and proposed to issue an even more expansive program of levies if re-elected,
including a 10 percent “base-line” tariff on all imported goods.
Both Democrats and Republicans have shown an increased willingness to embrace
protections for American industry in recent years, after decades in which trade
rapidly expanded, supply chains globalized and many U.S. factories shifted
overseas.
While Mr. Biden has reduced some of the tariffs Mr. Trump put into effect, for
example those on Europe, he has kept the China tariffs and other measures in
place. Biden administration officials are also debating raising tariffs on some
strategic products, like electric vehicles, further.
Proponents argue that tariffs deter China from flooding the United States with
cheap goods, protecting vulnerable American manufacturing industries and
generating revenue for the federal government.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Critics say tariffs simply raise prices for American consumers and pose a
particular burden for lower-income people who spend more of their money on
goods. Tariffs also increase costs for American factories that depend on foreign
inputs, which can make U.S. products more expensive and less competitive
internationally.
During Mr. Trump’s tenure, the average U.S. tariff on Chinese goods jumped from
3.1 percent to 21 percent within just two years, while the average Chinese
tariff on U.S. goods rose from 8 percent to 21.8 percent, the study says.
The study authors say it is not clear precisely why import tariffs did not
result in more U.S. jobs. One possibility is that firms simply imported products
from other lower-cost countries, rather than China, a trend that is visible in
trade data.
In some cases, Mr. Dorn said, U.S. industries that received import protection
ended up having higher sales; one possibility is that American firms found that
they could raise their prices after tariffs were imposed without raising their
output.
It remains an open question whether tariffs that failed to generate substantial
job gains during the trade war might create more jobs over longer periods, the
paper said.
Ana Swanson covers trade and international economics for The Times and is based
in Washington. She has been a journalist for more than a decade. More about Ana
Swanson
* Share full articleShare free access
*
*
* Read in app
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Enjoy unlimited access to all of The Times.
6-month Welcome Offer
original price: $6.25sale price: $1/week
Learn more
SITE INDEX
SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION
* © 2024 The New York Times Company
* NYTCo
* Contact Us
* Accessibility
* Work with us
* Advertise
* T Brand Studio
* Your Ad Choices
* Privacy Policy
* Terms of Service
* Terms of Sale
* Site Map
* Canada
* International
* Help
* Subscriptions