The Insight: How Much Are Trade Battles Costing You?

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Are global tariffs successfully bringing factory jobs back to the U.S.?

To answer this question with a simple yes or no along with the data leaves out the complexities of the issue.

According to the Baton Rouge Business Report, “Tariffs have created both winners and losers.” Metal and transportation manufacturers have gained “more than 41,000 jobs” while food, furniture, rubber, and plastics manufacturers have lost over 32,000.

The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) said “The American manufacturing sector has without a doubt been rebounding this year,” explaining that “Factories are hiring; production is rising” and “In July, manufacturing activity reached its highest level since 2022.”

However, according to the Post’s article, “what’s happening is hardly the broad ‘golden age’ Trump has promised.” The article said that it is yet unclear whether tariffs are directly responsible for spurring this growth, adding that the “boom in artificial intelligence and data center construction combined with the war in Iran and lower interest rates are probably bigger drivers of hiring.”

What is clear, according to the article, “is that tariffs have had a negative impact” on some manufacturing sectors, “especially certain factories that rely on imported goods.”

The Coalition For A Prosperous America highlighted that US durable goods orders rose 8.2% in 2025, “signaling strong forward manufacturing activity” while the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) March 2026 Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) reached 52.7 and showed three consecutive months of expansion.

According to the coalition, US industrial production “reached its highest level since 2019, with manufacturing output now growing 2% higher in 2025 after years of contraction.” The article also highlighted that “tariffs are not driving inflation,” explaining that “tariff-sensitive goods prices rose just 1.0% YoY [year-over-year], while inflation is concentrated in non-tradeable sectors like housing, energy, and healthcare.”

The Coalition said that “none of this means the industrial base is fully healed” following “decades of offshoring,” but it “does show that the industrial base still responds when policy stops subsidizing import penetration at every turn.”

Tariffs “are producing measurable gains” and Section 232 tariffs (tariffs allowed to be set by the executive branch on specific imports that threaten national security) “must remain the central strategic instrument” because “Industries tied to national resilience, industrial depth, and military readiness cannot be left exposed to price-distorting import surges.”

The Section 232 coverage “must expand alongside targeted industrial support where import dependence remains severe,” adding that “rising demand paired with insufficient domestic supply is not a justification for more imports” but rather “a signal to invest and expand capacity at home.”

Whether tariffs are working or not should not be judged by monthly employment data alone, according to the Coalition, but rather by “Orders, production, productivity, and domestic market share,” explaining that these things respond first and “lasting employment gains follow only after the capacity base is rebuilt.”

The CATO Institute (Lean Right) has pushed back on much of the above sentiment, saying that “American manufacturing is surging–despite tariffs, not because of them.” The article highlighted that the Trump administration has been “trumpeting” the data and Vice President JD Vance “is gloating.”

The data has been used by the “pro-tariff crowd” to write a narrative saying “the ongoing manufacturing upswing is a clear Trump trade policy success story.” However, according to CATO, “there are several reasons to doubt that spin.”

CATO asserted that PMI surveys “are useful for gauging short-term industry sentiment and forecasting future trends but can misrepresent what’s happening nationwide and over the long term.

CATO conceded however, that despite the problems with PMI data, “real-world data do show an uptick in the U.S. manufacturing sector, especially in 2026.” The Federal Reserve’s industrial production index has shown that “domestic manufacturing output has been on a decent run since Trump took office,” however “there’s little reason to think it’s owed to Trump’s tariffs.”

The Institute explained that on the supply side of the equation, “the One Big Beautiful Bill Act restored and made permanent provisions that allow U.S. businesses to immediately deduct spending on equipment, machinery, and research and development (R&D), and the law temporarily allowed U.S. manufacturers to do the same for spending on structures.” Research shows that “cutting the after-tax cost of these business inputs boosts investment and growth.”

The demand side of the equation is the “U.S. artificial intelligence buildout–now totaling trillions of dollars in new spending that dwarfs previous U.S. infrastructure booms.”

This boom “has become a big and direct source of orders for American manufacturers that equip both the stuff needed to build a data center (bulldozers, trucks, structural steel, etc.) and what goes inside them (electrical equipment, server racks, semiconductors, etc.).

“The best thing tariff advocates can say today,” according to CATO, “is that their chaotic and costly taxes didn’t kill the AI golden goose or offset gains from last year’s corporate tax reforms.”

CATO warned however, that “the AI boom’s capital expenditure wave might not last, and U.S. manufacturers facing tariff-inflated costs across their supply mix–along with U.S. laws that ensure future uncertainty–may be unwilling to invest in new factories on a wager that the AI gravy train keeps rolling (especially given other economic headwinds like an aging population and declining immigration).”

Have tariffs helped? Yes, in some sectors. Other sectors have felt the pressure of them. It depends who you ask whether the tariffs will help to rebuild the American manufacturing base or cripple it further in the long run. Both proponents and critics say the picture is yet far from being crystal clear and that it will take time to see where the tariffs lead us.

What are most media outlets missing when it comes to tariffs?

When media outlets cover tariffs, they often stick to basic headlines about higher prices on store shelves or political debates in Congress. This leaves out crucial parts of how tariffs work behind the scenes.

• Most tariffs aren't placed on finished products like shoes or phones; they are placed on “intermediate inputs”—raw materials like steel, chemical reagents, and electronic chips that companies use to make other things.
• When a specific country faces high tariffs, multinational companies often shift factories to other non-tariffed nations, which changes global trade routes on paper without actually altering manufacturing domestically.
• Changes in foreign currency values can cushion tax blows, while corporations often hire lobbyists to secure government tax exemptions that smaller businesses can't afford.