A non-partisan organization, The Coalition for a Prosperous America, represents 4.1 million households through agricultural, manufacturing and labor members. On their website, they say the board and membership include Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Conservatives, and Liberals.

THE TARIFF JOB TRACKER

Currently, they are researching job losses as a result of the tariffs. Their Tariff Job Tracker covers job losses and gains. So far, the job gains have exceeded losses by 20 to 1.

They have identified 514 job losses with twenty times more gains. Their research only looks at facts in order to get past the politically-motivated claims. All information comes directly from companies.

In a previous article, CPA identified job gains in four sectors, all affected by Section 201 and Section 232 tariffs: steel, aluminum, solar panels and cells, and washing machines. These new jobs include additions to existing plants or the opening of brand new facilities by steel companies including Nucor Corp., aluminum producers like Aleris, washing machine makers like Whirlpool, and solar cell makers like First Solar. In addition, this week, Silfab, an Italian-Canadian solar panel maker, announced they will add a plant in the United States.

Their tally of job losses so far is 514. Most of these are layoffs due to the increased cost of steel following the 25% steel tariffs implemented in March which has negatively impacted some companies where steel is a large part of their input costs.

IT SHOULDN’T BE A SURPRISE

The job gain should not be surprising, the organization wrote, “It is standard economic theory that tariffs will stimulate domestic production. That is precisely what the tariffs in these four industries are doing.”

According to mainstream economics, the downsides of tariffs are that they can lead to higher prices and in the long term they can lead to inefficiency. Neither of those currently apply. Price inflation is restrained because of oversupply. And in terms of inefficiency, in none of the tariffed sectors is there a dominant monopoly or even oligopoly controlling production.

For now, the authors write, the tariffs are working. They say to ignore the dramatized hype.

First reported here.