Trump’s Flawed Claim that Tariffs Made the U.S. Its ‘Richest’

In arguing for more tariffs on goods imported to the United States, President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. was its “richest” or “wealthiest” during the late 1800s and early 1900s because of tariffs. In multiple ways, his claim is wrong or misleading.

In terms of the overall U.S. economy, real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product per capita is many times higher today than it was during the so-called Gilded Age, which was a post-Civil War period of economic prosperity – largely for the wealthy – amid the nation’s industrial expansion.

In addition, several economists have said that Trump and others have given too much credit to tariffs for the economic growth that did occur in America more than 100 years ago. For example, in a 2000 paper, Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, wrote: “That tariffs coincided with rapid growth in the late nineteenth century does not imply a causal relationship.” Irwin and other economists and historians have said that other factors, such as immigration and increased labor productivity, contributed more to the growth in that era.