There\nis increasing evidence that Trump\u2019s tariffs are working to expand American\nmanufacturing and create jobs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According\nto the February 11, 2019 U.S. Manufacturing Technology Order Report press\nrelease<\/a> of The Association for Manufacturing Technology, <\/em><\/strong>\u201c<\/em>The\nyear- end order total for 2018 was $5.5 billion, up 19 percent from the annual\nsum for 2017\u2026\u2019We finished a fantastic run up in manufacturing technology orders\nduring 2018, with most analysts looking for good growth in units and modest\ngrowth in revenue in 2019,\u201d said AMT President Doug Woods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nan Op-Ed<\/a>\nfor The Hill on February 12, 2019, Michael Stumo, CEO of the coalition for a\nProsperous America, wrote: \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that America\u2019s manufacturers are\ncurrently rebounding. The tariffs that President Trump imposed a year ago on\nsteel, aluminum, solar panels and washing machines have already created more\nthan 11,000<\/a> new jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\n2016 when he was a candidate, Trump told the Washington Post<\/a> that he could make the U.S.\ndebt-free “over a period of eight years.” Thus, the question is: Are Trump\u2019s tariffs reducing the Federal budget\ndeficit and paying down the national debt?<\/p>\n\n\n\n For\nclarity, the Federal budget deficit is the annual difference between what the\nfederal government takes in as revenue and what it spends for expenses. The U.\nS. has run a federal budget deficit every year since\n2001<\/a> by spending\nmore than it raises. The national\ndebt is the total amount of money that has been borrowed and not yet repaid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At 7 PM on March 6, 2019 when I finished\nwriting this article, the national debt was $22.109 trillion, and the Federal\nbudget deficit was at $846.945 billion according to the U. S. National debt\nclock website<\/a> (it registers an\nincrease every second.) In a CNN Business article<\/a> by Lydia DePillis, on\nJanuary 4, 2019, \u201cThe US national debt stood at\n$21.974 trillion<\/a> at the end of 2018, more than $2 trillion\nhigher than when President Donald Trump took office, according to numbers\nreleased Thursday by the Treasury Department.\u201d On the other hand, the national\ndebt nearly doubled under Obama\u2019s<\/a>\neight-years as President going from $10.626 trillion when he was sworn on\nJanuary 20, 2009 to $19.947 trillion when he left on January 20, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Bloomberg article<\/a> by Mark Niquette on January 17, 2019, states, \u201cAccording to data from U.S. Customs and\nBorder Protection, more than $13 billion in duties imposed by the Trump\nadministration were assessed on imported goods as of Dec. 18\u2026Customs and Border\nProtection collects the tariffs based on the price paid for shipments and the\ntariff rate in effect, and duties are charged when shipments are released into\nthe U.S. The assessed amount now tops $13 billion, with $8 billion coming from\nthe duties on Chinese goods\u2026The duties are deposited in the U.S. Treasury.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus,\nalthough President Trump claims that the tariffs are being paid by China and\nother countries, the tariffs are actually being paid to the U. S. Treasury by\ncompanies that import products. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As\nI wrote in my last article, tariffs were a large source of revenue for the U.S.\ngovernment for over a hundred years. However, in 1913, the 16th<\/sup>\nAmendment established Congress\u2019s right to impose a federal income tax, and\ntariffs have represented a smaller proportion of receipts ever since. <\/p>\n\n\n\n