Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Failed to Revive Manufacturing, New Report Finds

President Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs not only failed to deliver the manufacturing revival he promised but also actively slowed job creation across the U.S. economy, according to a new analysis.While Mr. Trump said the tariffs would trigger a roaring renaissance in American manufacturing, the aggressive trade policy wiped out 89,000 manufacturing jobs in the 10 months following their announcement, according to a report from the Advancing American Freedom Foundation.The report from the foundation — founded in 2021 by Vice President Mike Pence — lands at a politically awkward moment. It comes months after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs as unconstitutional and as businesses line up to reclaim an estimated $166 billion in refunds.Mr. Trump unveiled the tariffs on April 2, 2025, framing them as a bold reset of American trade policy. Imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the measures slapped rates of 10-50 percent on imports — the largest U.S. tariff hike in decades. The administration promised the duties would bring factory jobs back home and reduce American reliance on foreign goods.Researchers say those goals never materialized. They estimate the tariffs left the country with up to one million fewer jobs than would have been expected under pre-tariff trends. Manufacturing — the very sector the policy aimed to help — was hit especially hard, losing nearly 90,000 positions in the policy’s first year, or an average of about 6,250 jobs per month.“We can say with an over 90 percent confidence level that manufacturing lost jobs because of the tariffs,” the vice president of the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom, Richard Stern, told Fox News Digital. Mr. Stern said the policy backfired because many American manufacturers depend on imported parts and equipment. “Most of the Americans that are importing are American businesses, especially American manufacturers and producers. So the tariffs really ended up being a tax on high-end American manufacturing.”The duties did prove a windfall for Washington. Tariff collections climbed to $23.9 billion in May 2025 from $9.6 billion in March of the same year, according to Treasury data, reaching $215.2 billion by the end of the 2025 fiscal year — roughly triple pre-tariff levels.But the report contends that revenue success came at a steep cost. Researchers found employment growth weakened across most sectors after the tariffs took effect, with manufacturing and trade-related industries among the hardest hit. In addition, the burden fell largely on Americans. About 90 percent of the tariff cost was absorbed by U.S. importers rather than foreign producers, the report found, and the average American family ended up paying about $1,000 more in 2025.Mr. Pence has been a frequent Trump critic, especially after the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Asked about the report’s findings, a White House spokesman, Kush Desai, did not address the claims, instead telling Fox News Digital: “Another useless memo is still not going to make Mike Pence relevant again.”On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled the IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional, voiding related exemptions and retaliatory measures and opening the door to refunds. Mr. Stern argued repayment cannot solve the problem.“You can’t undo the damage. You can’t undo a factory,” he said. “There are many that closed in America because they couldn’t get their hands on products used for manufacturing.”

Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Failed to Revive Manufacturing, New Report Finds

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