Why a war on the trade deficit won’t reindustrialize America

Photo credit: Bernard Spragg via Flickr. Public Domain. Commentary by Ed Dolan. Niskanen Center – April 10, 2025.

President Donald Trump and his team are out to reindustrialize America. Our steelworkers and auto workers, the president says, have “watched in anguish” as “foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories.” But they know the way out: a tariff-led war on the trade deficit. It seems simple: If we make imports more expensive, people will buy fewer of them. If imports decrease, the trade deficit shrinks. If we smelt our own steel, build our own cars, and stitch our own track shoes, we make America great again. Unfortunately, […]

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