Wall Street isn’t happy with President Trump’s tariffs. But let’s remember, Wall Street didn’t put him in office. We did.
We, the muscle class who keep losing jobs to globalist, anti-America-first policies. We, the young voters for whom the American Dream is increasingly out of reach. And we, the hard-working minorities who have endured four years of open borders and the strain it places on wages, services and safety.
When I was in graduate school studying economics, we were taught that it made sense to shift manufacturing to where goods could be produced more cheaply and efficiently. This would, in theory, allow the U.S. to redeploy resources where they could be “better used.”
At the time, that logic made sense to me. But we weren’t taught the long-term consequences of these policies — consequences that President Trump is finally confronting.
In the past 40 years, we’ve lost more than 7 million manufacturing jobs and 70,000 factories. For every manufacturing job lost, it’s estimated that 7-8 support jobs disappear with it. Of course, not all of this is due to globalization, but the impact has been devastating. The middle class has been hollowed out. Two decades ago, the average household needed about 34 weeks of wages to support a family. Today, it’s 62.
I recently listened to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on a podcast defending tariffs. He shared a startling fact: the top 10% of Americans own 88% of equities. The next 40% own the remaining 12%, and the bottom 50% are in debt.
I want Wall Street to do well. I want people to get rich. But the bottom 50% need to be brought back into the economy. The American wealth gap has never been wider.
Former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also shared eye- opening numbers: Today, the top 1% of Americans have more wealth than the middle 60% combined.
Meanwhile, globalization is eroding our ability to innovate. Of 64 critical technologies, the United States now trails China in 57. Just 15 years ago, we trailed in only three. Why? Because when you outsource manufacturing, innovation, engineering and long-term planning tend to follow.
To those who oppose tariffs and claim this isn’t how we treat trading partners, I ask: Why do those partners tariff us? If pure free trade is the ideal, why are we running a trade deficit of over $1.2 trillion? These imbalances aren’t just the result of tariffs — they’re also caused by foreign subsidies and protectionist policies that shield their industries from fair competition.
The U.S. has the leverage, and President Trump understands this. Too many of our trade partners have become dependent on taking advantage of us.
Take China. Yes, our trade with them supports around 170,000 jobs in the U.S., but it supports 10 million in China. Even though China’s population is four times larger than ours, we are the ones doing the consuming. Now, with China in a deep recession, they’re trying to export their way out of it ... straight into our market.
Another common criticism is that tariffs cause inflation. But inflation stems from monetary policy. It’s our spending and money supply driving inflation, not tariffs.
So why is this a partisan issue? Democrats claim to be the party of the working class and minorities, and accuse Republicans of only caring about billionaires. But it’s tariffs and pro-American trade policies that have the power to actually rebuild the middle class.
Tariffs, or even just the credible threat of them, can bring manufacturing home. Middle-class wages have been stagnant. Life expectancy is shrinking. Our kids are no longer expected to live better lives than their parents. President Trump’s tariffs are a targeted solution to these very real problems.
I am a free-market capitalist. But even I know that unchecked wealth concentration is dangerous. If the gap continues to grow, it’s not hard to imagine a destabilized America.
I trust President Trump. Name one policy in the last four years, from the opposition, that made life better for working- class Americans. They’ve been wrong at every turn.
Tariffs are just one piece of the puzzle. Combine them with fiscal discipline, energy dominance and deregulation, and we may very well enter a new American golden age.
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