Leo Hindery Jr. is co-chair of the Task Force on Jobs Creation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Formerly the CEO of AT&T Broadband and its predecessor, Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), he is currently an investor in media properties. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

It's clear that President Trump's ongoing tariff gambit is a strategic blunder. Workers, consumers and farmers are already paying a steep price for the President's shortsightedness, and there's likely much more pain to come.

All of this chaos was avoidable, and tariffs should have been used as a last resort. Trump, instead, used them as his first action, with little regard for the adverse consequences to America's economy and its workers.

Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, aimed mostly at China because of its dominance in producing these raw materials, demonstrates just how the President's ill-conceived strategy has backfired.

Trump said that his tariffs would resuscitate American industry and create many new jobs. But, in fact, there are just over 140,000 Americans currently working in the steel industry, and data shows that fewer than 15,000 of these jobs have been added since the President took office.

The Trump administration blindly overlooked the reality that 46-times more American workers — 6.5 million in total — have jobs with manufacturers that use raw steel and aluminum. Making the materials which these manufacturers depend on much more expensive has actually forced them to cut jobs and raise the prices of their finished goods.

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