By Katie Hettinga
The Wall Street Journal recently published an op-ed by President Trump in which he claims that his tariffs “have brought America back.” A smaller trade deficit, greater manufacturing employment, trillions in new investment, and low inflation are among the imagined record of wins delivered by his tariff policy.
In reality, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs dropped by 68,000 employees from December 2024 to December 2025. The trade deficit in the first 11 months of 2025 was billions of dollars larger than the same period in 2024. Inflation remains higher than the Fed’s target. And the investment figures Trump claims are questionable, given he claims pledges for $20 trillion in new foreign investment in the United States. That would be one-fifth of the entire world’s global economic activity.
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Originally published in The Economic Populist — a project of the American Economic Liberties Project.