Liberation Day for American Workers: Trump Takes on Globalization
President Trump’s sweeping tariffs deliver on his promise to revive American manufacturing and protect workers by reversing decades of damaging trade deficits.
Delivering on Promises to American Workers
Saturday, April 5th, 2025: By Walter Curt
President Donald J. Trump has once again put American workers first. In early 2025, he unveiled a bold new tariff policy aimed at reviving U.S. manufacturing and correcting decades of unfair trade. This move isn’t just another policy tweak – it’s the fulfillment of Trump’s long-standing promise to Make America Great Again for the working class. After years of watching factories shutter and jobs shipped overseas, Americans in industrial heartlands are seeing a leader match words with action. Promises made, promises kept. Trump’s tariff is a direct response to the economic carnage wrought by trade deals like NAFTA and the unchecked globalization that hollowed out the Midwest. It signals that American industry is open for business once more, and that the era of sacrificing U.S. workers’ livelihoods for cheap imports is over.
Figure: U.S. manufacturing employment (blue line, left axis) has declined dramatically over the last 40+ years, from a peak of about 19.5 million jobs in 1979 to roughly 12.8 million today. Meanwhile, manufacturing’s share of total employment (red line, right axis) fell from ~21% in 1980 to under 10% by 2024. This decline accelerated after the mid-1990s, as trade deals like NAFTA took effect.
Decades of Decline in American Manufacturing
For nearly three decades, U.S. manufacturing workers have endured a historic decline. Trade agreements and outsourcing have devastated communities from the Midwest “Rust Belt” to small-town America. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (implemented 1994) and China’s entry into the WTO (2001) opened the floodgates to offshoring. As a result, factories closed and middle-class jobs vanished at an alarming rate. Consider the toll since the mid-1990s:
Jobs Lost: Nearly five million manufacturing jobs – one out of every four – have been lost since NAFTA and the WTO came into effect.
Factories Shuttered: Over 60,000 American factories have closed down since NAFTA took effect in 1994, leaving empty plants and shattered local economies in their wake.
China Trade Shock: The growing trade deficit with China after 2001 displaced an estimated 3.7 million U.S. jobs by 2018, including 2.8 million in manufacturing.
Falling Employment Share: Manufacturing fell from ~25% of U.S. private employment in 1970 to only about 8% by 2024. Good-paying factory work that sustained families has become scarcer each year.
Entire once-thriving Midwestern industrial cities were gutted by this deindustrialization. States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin saw factories padlocked and livelihoods destroyed. For example, Michigan alone lost over 168,000 manufacturing jobs – 21% of its factory workforce – since the NAFTA/WTO era began. Youngstown’s steel mills, Detroit’s auto plants, and countless other facilities closed, earning the Rust Belt its name. Globalization’s losers were the American blue-collar workers, who were told that “free trade” would benefit everyone. Instead, they got pink slips and hollowed-out towns.
Trade Deficits: Draining America’s Wealth and Jobs
These trade agreements didn’t just cost jobs – they led to massive trade deficits that undercut U.S. industry. A trade deficit means America imports far more than it exports, sending dollars and demand overseas instead of supporting local production. Year after year, as imports of foreign-made cars, steel, electronics, and consumer goods surged, the U.S. trade gap widened. In 1993 (the year before NAFTA), the U.S. trade deficit was only about $65 billion. Fast forward to 2022, and the annual trade deficit had ballooned to $971 billion – a nearly fifteen-fold increase. In 2024, the goods trade deficit hit a record $1.2 trillion, an imbalance that President Trump rightly views as an unacceptable drag on the economy.
Figure: U.S. trade deficit (in goods and services) over time. The deficit (in billions of USD) has skyrocketed since the 1990s, especially after NAFTA in 1994 and China’s WTO entry in 2001. It reached record levels by the 2020s, topping $900 billion by 2022. Each surge represents more wealth and factory orders leaving the U.S. economy.
Why do trade deficits matter? Warren Buffett – hardly a protectionist – warned as far back as 2003 that America’s growing trade deficit was “selling the nation out from under us” by transferring our country’s net worth abroad. In other words, year after year of buying more from overseas than we sell is like a business losing money – unsustainable. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) likewise notes that surging imports and deficits directly contributed to millions of U.S. job losses and lower wages, especially in manufacturing. Cheap imports undercut American-made products, forcing domestic plants to close. Laid-off manufacturing workers often end up in lower-paying service jobs, if they find work at all, which hurts local economies and tax bases.
Trade deficits aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet – they translate to lost factories, lost jobs, and lost national wealth. The EPI calculates that eliminating the U.S. trade deficit could create millions of good-paying jobs. One analysis found that rebalancing trade (along with investing in infrastructure) would support up to 7 million new jobs, including over 3 million in manufacturing. That’s the scale of the opportunity President Trump seeks to capture by tackling the trade gap head-on. After decades of policies that left America open to one-sided “free” trade, Trump’s tariffs signal that the days of surrendering key industries are over.
Promises Made, Promises Kept: Trump Champions the Worker
When Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016, he campaigned on an unapologetically pro-worker, “America First” trade platform. He blasted deals like NAFTA as “a disaster” and vowed to stop the “bloodletting” of U.S. jobs to China and Mexico. Many politicians had made hollow promises to protect jobs in the past, but Trump was different – he openly confronted the corporate offshoring agenda and pledged tariffs and penalties on companies that shipped jobs overseas. This message resonated across the heartland. Communities that felt forgotten by Washington heard Trump loud and clear: he would fight for factory workers, steelworkers, auto workers – the backbone of America.
In office, President Trump moved swiftly. He scrapped the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Day One. He renegotiated NAFTA into the USMCA to better protect U.S. workers and farmers. And he imposed tariffs on steel, aluminum, solar panels, and Chinese goods to counter unfair practices. The results were tangible: even before the pandemic, manufacturing employment had ticked up, and confidence returned to sectors like steel (with new mills opening in states such as Illinois and Alabama). Trump’s first term proved he was serious about rebuilding industrial America.
Still, Trump knew much more needed to be done. The trade deficit remained enormous, and other countries continued to exploit one-sided trade benefits. So on the campaign trail in 2024, he doubled down on his promise: If re-elected, we will impose universal tariffs to finally balance the playing field. Voters gave him a mandate to act. Now, in 2025, President Trump is delivering the bold action workers have long awaited.
The 2025 Tariff Policy: Fair Trade at Last
Trump’s new 2025 tariff policy is a game-changer. Announced in what the White House dubbed “Liberation Day,” the policy slaps tariffs on virtually all imports in a sweeping effort to revive domestic manufacturing. Key features of this pro-worker tariff plan include:
Across-the-Board Tariff: A baseline 10% tariff on nearly every imported good from almost every country. This essentially acts as an “entry fee” for access to the U.S. market, instantly making American-made products more competitive at home. For decades, the U.S. imposed very low tariffs while many trade partners had higher barriers; Trump is ending that mismatch. As he has long argued, this “reciprocal” tariff approach forces other nations to play fair or lose access to U.S. consumers.
Targeted Higher Tariffs: In addition to the base 10%, certain industries and countries face steeper rates to address specific imbalances. Notably, a 25% tariff on automobiles not assembled in the U.S. took effect immediately. This is huge news for Midwestern auto workers – it incentivizes car companies to locate production in the United States (or face a hefty fee on each imported vehicle). Further 25% duties on auto parts are scheduled, ensuring that the entire supply chain benefits American labor. Likewise, U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico – whose trade surpluses with the U.S. have grown – are now hit with 25% tariffs on most goods, reversing decades of policies that encouraged outsourcing to those countries.
Deficit-Based “Customization”: The tariff rates are being “customized” country-by-country based on our trade deficit with each nation. Simply put, countries that have been selling far more to us than they buy (running big surpluses with the U.S.) are being penalized with higher tariffs until they rebalance. This innovative approach directly answers the trade deficit problem. Even U.S. allies are not exempt – if America has a large deficit with a country, that country is now paying its fair share. No more free rides at the expense of Ohio or Michigan’s workforce. As Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained, “This is the reordering of fair trade... It’s about those non-tariff trade barriers. That’s what we are addressing.” In other words, Trump’s policy also pressures foreign nations to drop unfair barriers (like quotas or regulations that block U.S. exports) or else face our tariffs.
President Trump framed this tariff offensive as “economic liberation” for the United States. He even joked that some tariffs hit tiny places like the Heard Island territory – a lighthearted nod that no loopholes would be left unaddressed. More seriously, Trump and his advisors have made clear that this is a long-term strategy to rebuild America’s industrial base. “I expect most countries to start to really examine their trade policy towards the United States... and stop picking on us,” Secretary Lutnick said, underscoring that the ultimate goal is for foreign governments to open their markets to U.S. goods and stop erecting barriers. By wielding America’s hefty buying power as leverage, Trump is forcing a global reset toward true reciprocity in trade.
Critically, this policy didn’t emerge from thin air – it’s the culmination of Trump’s consistent philosophy. He has always believed that when America’s workers are given a level playing field, they can out-compete anyone in the world. The 2025 tariffs create that level field. Factories that left for Mexico or China can now return home, knowing imports face a tariff toll. Companies that stayed in the U.S. no longer have to compete against artificially cheap foreign products subsidized by mercantilist governments. It’s fair trade, not free trade, and it puts American labor and ingenuity first.
A New Dawn for the American Worker
Trump’s pro-worker tariff is poised to ignite a manufacturing renaissance in the United States. Yes, there is a patriotic pride in seeing Made in USA tags again, but this is about economics as much as nationalism. Reinvesting in domestic industry means millions of high-quality jobs for Americans who don’t have Ivy League degrees but have plenty of skill and drive. Manufacturing jobs typically pay better than equivalent service jobs – often 20-30% higher wages for workers without a college degree – and provide solid benefits. Reindustrialization, therefore, is a direct path to rebuilding the middle class.
Already, optimism is surging in factory towns. Orders are beginning to shift to U.S. suppliers as the cost calculus changes in favor of local production. Entrepreneurs and major firms alike are announcing plans to expand production in America, from steel mills in Pennsylvania to electronics assembly in Texas. The Economic Policy Institute projects that reducing the trade deficit could bolster manufacturing dramatically; every $1 billion reduction in imports can translate into thousands of jobs gained. If Trump’s tariff policy even modestly shrinks the trade gap, the impact will be measured in hundreds of thousands of jobs returning. And Trump’s team is aiming higher – “sacrifice will lead to an economic renaissance in the long run,” they proclaim. In the President’s own words, “The patient lived, and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better, and more resilient than ever before. Make America great again!!!”. America’s economic patient – our industrial base – is on the mend at last.
Bold action always has its naysayers. But President Trump has never been one to be swayed by the pessimists or the elites who argue “nothing can be done.” He remembers the forgotten men and women. These tariffs are, at their core, a declaration that American workers will no longer be forgotten or ignored. The policy doesn’t cater to Wall Street; it caters to Main Street. It is a clear rebuke to decades of failed orthodoxy.
In 2025, we are witnessing a transformative moment: the leader of the free world standing up unapologetically for his nation’s workers. Factories humming back to life, steel and auto industries hiring again, and communities recovering their pride – that is the vision. President Trump’s new tariff policy is not about picking economic winners and losers; it’s about reclaiming America’s destiny. No longer will we accept decline as inevitable. With this bold pro-worker agenda, Trump is showing that the United States will fight for its industries and that we intend to win. The message to every American worker is resounding and clear: Your president has your back, and together we will rebuild this great nation’s prosperity one factory, one town, one family at a time. America First is more than a slogan – it’s now the policy of the land, and American workers are finally winning again.
