Trump has repeatedly promised to make the United States a \u201cmanufacturing powerhouse\u201d to avoid being permanently overtaken by its Asian competitors. (In the 1980s it was Japan; now it\u2019s China.) According to the president, friends even more than foes have been \u201ctaking our jobs, taking our wealth.\u201d His solution is to impose tariffs on all U.S. trading partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is certainly a constituency for the view that Americans were better off in the past than they are now, and that nineteenth-century policies are the way to go. Christian Whiton<\/a>, for example, has argued that \u201creasonable tariffs, Jacksonian defense policy, and immigration control [will] set [the] stage for peace and prosperity after turbulence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In reality, however, applying policies that were appropriate more than a century ago, when the U.S. enjoyed all kinds of advantages as a location for manufacturing, will cause something worse than turbulence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With his assault on \u201cglobalism,\u201d Trump stands as much chance of success as a British prime minister who proposed to reassemble the empire, or a German chancellor who attempted to restore the\u00a0Hohenzollerns<\/a>\u00a0to the throne. Time\u2019s arrow does not fly backward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><\/p> \u201cTrump\u2019s Tariffs and the End of American Empire\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/Qby7iZ0RnC<\/a><\/p>— Niall Ferguson (@nfergus) April 6, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote>