Since President Donald Trump launched his trade war earlier this year, industries impacted by tariffs have shed tens of thousands of jobs.
Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs have made that pinning down the exact start of his trade war a bit tricky. In February, he signed an executive order to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, but put the ones on Canada and Mexico on hold until March.
For his part, Sløk sees March as the start of the trade war and listed manufacturing, mining and logging, construction, wholesales trade, retail trade, transportation, and warehousing as the industries impacted by tariffs.
But even within tariff-impacted sectors, some areas have suffered more than others. For example, manufacturing shed 41,000 jobs, and wholesale trade lost 34,000.
But construction has been mostly flat, and retail trade even added 19,000 jobs. And while the mining and logging sector has lost 16,000 jobs, that category includes oil and gas extraction, which has been hit by lower crude prices and OPEC+ has ramped up production to grab market share.
To be sure, industries not directory affected by tariffs are cutting staff too, though that could be partly due to the general sense of economic uncertainty that the trade war has created.
The Trump administration has maintained that its tax cuts and deregulation will stoke more growth, with tariffs eventually creating more jobs and encouraging companies to invest in domestic production.
“President Trump was elected for change, and we are going to push through with the economic policies that are going to set the economy right. I believe by the fourth quarter, we’re going to see a substantial acceleration,” Bessent predicted.
