One of President Donald Trump’s top trade officials acknowledged on Tuesday that manufacturing is down due to the president’s tariffs and argued it’s going to take some time for the U.S. to see intended results.
Peter Navarro, adviser to the president, appeared on CNBC Tuesday where he was asked about manufacturing taking a hit.
“Manufacturing jobs have actually come down since some of the tariffs were put in place,” said host Joe Kernen.
“Your position is that you don’t turn around an ocean liner, you know, overnight, right? It’ll happen, but it takes time? Is that how you would address that?”
“That’s exactly right,” Navarro responded.
Navarro’s admission came as Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal editorial board ran a piece questioning where the manufacturing jobs are.
Trump promised voters in 2024 that if they returned him to the White House, he would deliver a blue-collar jobs boom. But one year later, this is yet to become reality.
“The jobs market is so-so, but tariffs are hurting domestic companies that make things,” the WSJ editorial said.
It also noted that companies are not hiring that many workers and manufacturing jobs have been on the decline since April.
“One big statistical reason to suspect that tariffs are hurting jobs is the trend in manufacturing. Remember when tariffs were supposed to produce a U.S. manufacturing boom? It hasn’t happened,” it stated.
“If Mr. Trump wants a manufacturing revival, he’ll drop his border taxes, and let his other tax policies help hiring and investment.”
But Navarro argued on Tuesday that there is a sequence of events that need to happen.
“You can’t just plop a factory town and not have your supply chains,” Navarro argued. “In this transition, we’re going to depend on foreign imports for the factory, but eventually they come.”
He said when the factories went with offshoring, the supply chains followed, but they have to get them back.
“We can’t just assemble stuff here. That doesn’t work for national security reasons,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Despite the weakening job market and ongoing concerns about affordability, a silver lining emerged on Tuesday morning when new figures showed the U.S. economy grew at a robust pace through the end of September.
According to the Commerce Department’s latest data, economic growth rose at a 4.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter.
This was an acceleration from the previous quarter and highest growth rate in two years, reflecting solid consumer spending on services like healthcare and recreational vehicles.
On Truth Social, Trump branded himself a “genius” and said the success came down to “good government, and tariffs.”
“Consumer spending is STRONG, Net Exports are WAY UP, Imports and Trade Deficits are WAY DOWN, and there is NO INFLATION!” he said, even though the latest inflation figures showed a rate of 2.7 per cent in November.
“Because of my Tax Bill (THE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL) and TARIFFS, INVESTMENT IS SETTING RECORDS. The Trump Economic Golden Age is FULL steam ahead — You haven’t seen anything yet!”
