The tariff onslaught against rivals (except China) and allies has reached somewhat of a pause. But President Trump and his administration have worked at a furious pace in several areas related to political economy, taking a proverbial ax to the government and pushing the bounds of the rule of law.
What is an overarching goal of these actions? Or, what is the purpose of Trumponomics?
In a word, reindustrialization.
The administration often describes its approach in populist terms — that it is fighting for forgotten domestic industries and workers and calling out unfair global trade. Tariff-fueled nationalism is a callback to eras when industrial America reigned supreme. For a time during the 20th century, parts of Europe and Asia were rebuilding after two world wars, so U.S. factories thrived, and manufacturing provided upward mobility for millions of Americans.
That golden age of manufacturing was unique: The United States faced virtually no foreign competition and had enormous government investment in infrastructure, education and research and development.
Today, China is a leading global manufacturer, with a huge robotics sector and well-developed supply chains. The Trump administration sometimes appears to ignore that advanced automation means far fewer workers to produce the same manufactured goods. Even if factories return, they will employ a small fraction of the people they once did.
To reindustrialize will require investment in people and machines — and a coherent strategy. Given the Trump administration’s aversion to collaboration and the internal contradictions of the factions within the administration, its reindustrialization drive appears disconnected from reality and destined to fail.
The great American reindustrialization project
Mr. Trump has been skeptical about global trade for decades. In 1987 he took out an ad in a newspaper warning that “for decades, Japan and others have been taking advantage of the United States.”
“America is being ripped off,” he said later. “We’re a debtor nation, and we have to tax, we have to tariff, we have to protect this country.”
The Trump administration cites tariffs as a linchpin of bringing jobs home, a mechanism to correct perceived trade imbalances and a source of tax revenue. Supposedly, foreign exporters, not Americans, will bear the brunt. But most economists point out what a study of the 2018 tariffs found and what was supported in 2025 by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation: The burden often falls on American households.
Retailers have warned of tariff-related price increases. Automakers fear new cars will jump thousands of dollars in cost, up to $12,000 each, according to Bloomberg. If companies can’t predict tariff policy, they hesitate to build factories — a problem for anyone serious about a true manufacturing renaissance.
About half of U.S. imports are intermediate goods (which are assembled into final products), according to writers at the Cato Institute. So under any broad tariff regime, domestic manufacturers who rely on foreign parts — like automakers — would potentially face higher costs at both ends in a curious industrial policy that penalizes both the raw materials (the minerals and components needed to build cars become more expensive to import with tariffs) and the finished product (the cars they build with those materials are hit with potential retaliatory tariffs from other countries if exported). When you tariff inputs, you’re not protecting an industry, you’re likely taxing at both ends.
Lest we forget so quickly, the previous administration also pushed a program of reindustrialization. One of President Joe Biden’s key successes was the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which was designed to foster U.S. semiconductor manufacturing independence. In March, Mr. Trump called it a “horrible, horrible thing.” But chips are foundational to any serious industrial policy in the 21st century because many products now and certainly an increasing number in the future will require this technology.
Warring factions
The conflict within Mr. Trump’s circle helps explain this lack of a clear path forward. Three power blocs — MAGA populists, Wall Street conservatives and tech futurists — have very different opinions about how to achieve a stronger U.S. economy.
The MAGA populists are led by people like Vice President JD Vance. They seem to genuinely believe in a manufacturing revival through protectionism.
Mr. Vance has outlined a vision that includes tariffs to protect domestic industries, tax cuts and deregulation to spur investment, lower energy costs, strong border enforcement to curb cheap labor and efforts to lure men back into the labor force at a higher rate.
Accomplishing this is complicated. In Mr. Trump’s first term, when the administration applied tariffs to steel and aluminum imports, the number of people working in iron and steel mills did rise briefly, but a 2019 study by the Federal Reserve estimated the higher input costs from the tariffs ultimately reduced manufacturing jobs. In a recent report from the Institute for Supply Management, which releases a monthly gauge of economic conditions for manufacturing, one respondent said that “customers are pulling in orders due to anxiety about continued tariffs and pricing pressures.” The uncertainty alone can hurt industries and work against any potential manufacturing revival.
Traditional Wall Street Republicans are not inherently opposed to domestic manufacturing; if anything, they appreciate stable supply chains. But they have been — and many continue to be — staunch believers in low taxes, free trade and minimal government regulation. Those three concepts can clash head-on with White House attempts to strong-arm businesses into reshoring.
Their primary interest is in the potential $4.5 trillion in tax cuts included in the House G.O.P. budget plan. For them, Mr. Trump’s hyperactive trade policy is a liability. The United States still depends on advanced machine tools from countries like Japan, specialized electronics from others like South Korea and cheap consumer goods from China and elsewhere.
High-profile individuals in this group have been critical of tariffs. The billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter Bill Ackman called the tariffs a “self-induced nuclear winter.” Before last week’s pause, Larry Fink of BlackRock and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase warned that we were headed toward a recession — or that we might already be in one.
The third faction, the Silicon Valley-friendly types, includes Elon Musk and others who believe the key to American prosperity is about winning in advanced industries like artificial intelligence, biotech, space travel and green energy. They’re not necessarily pro-China, but they do want frictionless access to foreign talent and specialized inputs. They find tariffs that hamper global collaboration or immigration policy that may spook top-tier engineers to be dangerously shortsighted.
This group rallied behind Mr. Trump because he promised tax and regulatory cuts and a bold future, but the tension is rising. Mr. Musk called Mr. Trump’s senior trade adviser Peter Navarro a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks” in comments on social media. This group may not last long in this environment; Mr. Musk may be stepping back from his role at the White House.
The populists demand a heroic manufacturing surge. Wall Street demands stable returns and tax cuts. Tech barons want advanced manufacturing but can’t abide the unpredictability of Mr. Trump’s tariffs. Reconciling these three factions requires vision, discipline and major policy coherence, none of which the White House has demonstrated.
A coherent plan
There’s truth in the call for an American industrial revival. Outsourcing disproportionately to cheaper labor markets was never a brilliant plan, particularly when we consider the national security risks of reliance on China.
But a coherent reindustrialization strategy would need to address several important factors.
First, it would acknowledge that while bringing some manufacturing home is strategically sound, attempting to recreate the mid-20th-century manufacturing economy is not desirable. It is impossible for companies to rewire their supply chains or significantly build manufacturing capacity in just a few years, and a future administration could come in and change industrial or trade policy. Goldman Sachs estimates that for 10 percent, broad-based tariffs we would see 100,000 new manufacturing jobs, but we would lose almost 500,000 from the higher input costs.
Modern manufacturing is high-tech and requires different skills from those of the 20th century. The focus should be on advanced manufacturing sectors where America can lead through innovation, not just protectionism: pharmaceuticals, clean-energy technology, robotics and semiconductors.
Second, it would invest substantially in the foundations for industrial competitiveness like education, infrastructure, research and development (like the CHIPS Act) and work force training.
Third, a serious strategy would recognize that alliances matter. Rather than needlessly alienate partners like Canada, Mexico, Japan and the European Union, a sound approach would build cooperative frameworks that reduce dependence on geopolitical rivals while strengthening ties with allies. Selective decoupling would better serve America’s long-term interests.
As the administration bounces between alienating allies and promising a manufacturing renaissance, Trumponomics looks less like an effort to forge a different future and more like a confused, self-defeating program and longing for a bygone era.
Kyla Scanlon is the author of “In This Economy? How Money & Markets Really Work” and Kyla’s Newsletter.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post This Is What Trumponomics Is Really About appeared first on New York Times.
