American double-trouble: Manufacturing is in retreat and farmers were suffering heavy losses

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U.S. manufacturing is in retreat and Trump’s tariffs aren’t helping

The manufacturing boom President Trump promised would usher in a golden age for America is going in reverse. After years of economic interventions by the Trump and Biden administrations, fewer Americans work in manufacturing than any point since the pandemic ended, ‘The Wall Street Journal’ writes.

Manufacturers shed workers in each of the eight months after Trump unveiled “Liberation Day” tariffs, according to federal figures, extending a contraction that has seen more than 200,000 roles disappear since 2023.

The Census Bureau estimates that manufacturing construction spending, which surged with Biden-era funding for chips and renewable energy, fell in each of Trump’s first nine months in office.

The gradual slowdown is in some ways a continuation of decadeslong trends that pulled factory jobs overseas and helped empty out Midwestern cities. In an industry where capital plans and construction timelines extend years into the future, turnarounds also don’t happen overnight.

In November, the Federal Reserve slashed estimates for overall U.S. output since the pandemic in an annual revision to metrics for industrial production.

While auto and chip makers have cut tens of thousands of workers over the past year, stable layoff rates across the sector suggest that the jobs pullback is gradual.

In the long term, tariffs could achieve their desired effect of making some manufacturers more competitive with overseas producers. Economists believe lower interest rates and deregulation could also provide support. But in the shorter run, tariffs have boosted many companies’ costs on materials sourced abroad, pushing firms that buy foreign parts to raise prices or scramble for supplies.

The tariffs on foreign steel doubled to 50% this year

The White House’s stop-and-start policymaking—Trump threatened new tariffs on Europe, Canada and South Korea in recent weeks—has also led to what many executives view as a lost year for investment. The possibility the Supreme Court could nullify some import taxes has added to the uncertainty.

With tariffs on foreign steel doubled to 50% this year, Insteel has increasingly struggled to get from U.S. suppliers the metal it shapes into wire that reinforces concrete infrastructure, such as the Gordie Howe bridge, a major trade crossing that will soon connect Detroit to Canada. Instead, Insteel has at times turned to tariffed imports from Algeria, India and elsewhere when there weren’t enough American supplies to go around.

In the trucking industry, a yearslong postpandemic slide has dinged firms such as metal-component maker NN. The Charlotte, N.C.,-based company, which runs 23 plants in six countries, trimmed its U.S. workforce in recent years to compete with low-cost factories abroad, as well as in response to slowing growth in electric-vehicle demand.

That has squeezed how much cash the firm has to invest in new, potentially lucrative sectors such as data centers and electrical equipment. 

“I don’t know when all of this money is going to kick in,” Trump said

Trump has taken other measures to try to jump-start the manufacturing sector. He muscled trading partners such as Japan and South Korea into deals that include pledges to invest hundreds of billions in the U.S. Firms such as Apple, TSMC and AstraZeneca have announced massive projects that could create thousands of manufacturing jobs.

Administration officials say the long-term vision is to make industries self-sufficient. The timeline for investments is often years, muddling the near-term outlook for manufacturing.

“I don’t know when all of this money is going to kick in,” Trump said in a December interview with The Wall Street Journal.

“The biggest factor overall in how manufacturing is doing is how our economy is doing. There’s no getting away from that,” said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which supports tariffs on steel and many Chinese products. “It’s way too early to tell what the new normal is because we’ve just exited the roller-coaster ride.”

At the same time, China and others have continued pumping out exports despite tariffs, pushing down prices in global markets where U.S. manufacturers are struggling to compete.

Former US agriculture officials, top Republican senator warn of farm country trouble

The chair of the U.S. Senate's agriculture committee warned on Tuesday that farmers were suffering heavy losses, while more than two dozen former industry leaders sounded the alarm about the risk of a "widespread collapse of American agriculture" ahead of a $12 billion government bailout expected to reach growers this month, Reuters reports.

For three years, the costs of seed, fertilizer and other farm inputs rose, while plentiful grain supplies limited profits for farmers, economists said. Then, President Donald Trump returned to office last year, sparking trade disputes that disrupted U.S. crop exports and immigration crackdowns thatincreased labor costsand leftsome farms with crops rotting in fields.

Many farmers are now bracing to potentially lose money for a fourth consecutive year. Tough credit conditions are forcing those with limited cash flows to make decisions about what acres to plant and how much fertilizer to buy, economists said.

Former USDA and industry officials said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers that Trump administration policies harmed farmers.

The percentage of farmers expecting bad financial times in the next year jumped to 59% in January from 47% in December, according to a survey, opens new tab released Tuesday by Purdue University and CME Group(CME.O), opens new tab.

The percentage of producers who thought U.S. agriculture would have widespread bad times during the next five years climbed to 46% from 24% a month earlier, the survey found.

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