XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns, talk.politics.misc   
   XPost: alt.politics   
   From: hotmail@hotmail.edu   
      
   The washington times says Trump has won all the wars and he's a   
   hyperintelligent super brain who has dropped prices 1700%.   
      
   Not like last time when his tariffs crushed our manufacturing almost   
   destroying our economy according to the radical leftist CATO Institute.   
      
   February 11, 2026 5:39PM   
   Trump's First-Term Tariffs Crushed US Manufacturing   
   By Alan Reynolds   
      
      
   Attorney Robert Lighthizer, President Trump's US Trade Representative in   
   his first term, shares considerable responsibility for the stunning drop in   
   manufacturing output and jobs soon after August 2018, when Trump's first   
   trade war began in earnest.   
      
   Trump's first year, 2017, ended on a promising note with a bold reduction   
   of the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and a minor trim of the top   
   personal rate to 37%. The prospect of growth-friendly taxation was already   
   anticipated in the last quarter of 2017, with a 4.6% rate of GDP growth. In   
   2018, unfortunately, Trump's attention shifted to nasty, unpredictable   
   tariffs, which had a paralyzing effect on business plans and world   
   investors.   
      
   US GDP growth gradually slowed to 3.3% in the first quarter of 2018, 2.1%   
   in the second, 2.5% in the third, and 0.6% in the fourth.   
      
   The S&P 500 stock index fell from 2789.8 in January 2018 to 2567.3 by   
   December, with most of that loss in the last quarter.   
      
   Meanwhile, USTR Lighthizer's relatively painless recommended tariffs on   
   washing machines and solar panels in late January escalated to a serious   
   trade war by August.   
      
   By June 1, previously limited 25% tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum had   
   spread to include Canada, Mexico, and the EU. By July 6, a first phase of   
   USTR tariffs on $34 billion of imports from China went into effect, with   
   another $15 billion added on August 23. A Peterson Institute study found,   
   "the new $50 billion list targets even more intermediate inputs—95 percent   
   of the products hit are now intermediate inputs or capital equipment used   
   largely by American-based companies dependent on imports from China. "   
      
   Figure 1 shows that year-to-year growth in manufacturing output fell   
   steadily after September 2018 and was down nearly 4% by October 2019.   
   Manufacturing employment began falling continually after August 2018, long   
   before the COVID-19 scare of March 2020.   
      
   Figure 1   
   tariffs trump   
      
   In 2018, President Trump first began raising tariffs only on a small number   
   of specific goods, such as washing machines, steel, and aluminum. By   
   August, however, Trump levied tariffs of up to 25% on entire   
   countries—notably, China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico.   
      
   In his second term in 2025, by contrast, Trump imposed high tariffs on many   
   manufactured goods and all countries.   
      
   As Figure 2 shows, US manufacturing accounted for 11% of GDP before this   
   one-man war on trade began in 2018. By the second quarter of 2025,   
   manufacturing had shrunk to 9.4% of GDP.   
      
   Figure 2   
   tariffs trump   
      
   Despite Robert Lighthizer having had his hands all over the first-term   
   contraction of US manufacturing output and jobs in late 2018, his fawning   
   February 6 letter about Trump in the Wall Street Journal tries to rewrite   
   their first trade war fiasco as a glorious victory for the shrinking US   
   manufacturing companies and jobs:   
      
   "In his first term, " says Lighthizer, "[Trump] did everything possible to   
   change the dynamic. He put tariffs on China, used the threat of tariffs to   
   renegotiate all our major trading agreements, and stopped the   
   counterproductive World Trade Organization dispute process. He also moved   
   the country's understanding of the problem and acceptance of tariffs as the   
   remedy dramatically in his direction. Prior to the unprecedented Covid   
   pandemic, the results of his presidency were faster economic growth, new   
   manufacturing jobs, real wage increases [and] the beginning of   
   reindustrialization... [emphasis added]. "   
      
   The whole idea that Trump tariffs would "protect US manufacturing jobs" was   
   all lies then, and it is all lies now.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)