One year after President Donald Trump stood in the White House Rose Garden and announced the highest U.S. tariffs in nearly a century, the number of factory jobs is down and inflation is up.
But the chronic trade deficit, which the president that April afternoon declared a job-killing national emergency, has declined for 10 consecutive months. More than 20 trading partners yielded to the president’s tariff threats — in some cases after resisting for years — and agreed to open their markets to U.S. products. Some foreign leaders also promised generous investments in new factories that one day might employ the president’s blue-collar supporters.
