Tariff Insanity
February 4, 2026
Writes Dom Armentano:
President Trump’s recent Op-Ed in the WSJ (January 30) defending his tariff policy is, well, delusional; there is just no other word for it. The Journal must have printed it as a kind of sad joke.
.
In the article (who wrote it?) Trump claims that tariffs have “created an economic miracle” in the U.S. (!) and that inflation has fallen despite a five-fold increase in tariffs. Really?
.
Economists would disagree. The tariffs were targeted to revive U.S. manufacturing and narrow the so-called trade deficit. Yet the latest government report on the trade deficit is that it has increased dramatically–doubled in fact–over the last year. Strike one.
.
Have tariffs revived U.S. manufacturing ? Hardly. Manufacturing is only 10% of the GNP and has been falling steadily for decades (due primarily to our loss of comparative advantage). The imposition of heavy tariffs has not produced any manufacturing renaissance. Indeed, it has been estimated that as many as 72,000 jobs have been lost in U.S. manufacturing since January of 2025. Some miracle. Strike two.
.
Trump claims that foreign exporters have been forced to “eat” the tariffs implying, of course, that the tariffs have not been passed along to U.S. buyers. False. Roughly 96% of the increased tariff burden has been borne by domestic buyers. The inflation rate IS slightly lower recently ( lower oil prices; slower monetary growth) but this has occurred IN SPITE OF the higher tariff costs (higher prices; smaller sizes) that have been uploaded to buyers. Strike three.
.
Tariffs are a tax and the current “policy” of this Administration is to have the President assign and rescind those taxes at his whim on any given day. Absolute madness. If the Supreme Court cannot decide this case correctly–and strike down this arbitrary and unconstitutional executive overreach–they should turn in their black robes and retire.
.
The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. He is the author of Against the State and Against the Left. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
