A healthy, growing manufacturing industry is essential for good, middle-class jobs, for broadly shared prosperity in the US, and for long-term economic growth. Manufacturing is essential for national security, health security, and a robust, resilient supply of many essential and non-essential goods.
The US must make the US dollar competitive again, rebalance trade, and support US manufacturing with effective Buy American policies to relaunch manufacturing growth. We must use tariff policies where required against foreign predation, dumping, IP theft, and other anti competitive policies of foreign governments. We must use targeted industrial policies when necessary to support industries deemed essential for national security or economic security.
An economist with the San Francisco Federal Reserve wrote in their “Economic Letter” from July 14 that tariffs are going to lead to much higher inflation in the weeks ahead. There’s just one caveat, and senior economist Mauricio Ulate admits it up front.
With President Donald Trump’s recent announcement of 50% tariffs on copper imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the United States has correctly identified copper as a material of strategic national importance.
If America fails to defend its copper industry today, it will lose the industrial backbone for tomorrow’s economy. The combination of speculative arbitrage, Chinese overproduction, and predatory pricing is decimating American copper mills.
A Market Access Charge (MAC) might be the perfect addition to the tariff agenda; a surgical tool to tax capital inflows.
The CPA Domestic Market Share Index (DMSI) dropped abruptly in the first quarter of 2025 as the massive pre-tariff import surge driven by stockpiling heavily outweighed current U.S. manufacturing output.
Following April’s trade deficit data, which showed a complete freefall in trade during the “Liberation Day” tariff month, May’s trade deficit rose by 18.7% on a monthly basis to $71.5 billion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).
