In 1981, 44% of the global population lived in extreme poverty. By 2022, that number had been reduced to 9%. Although this dramatic decrease in extreme poverty has numerous causes, empirical research strongly supports the conceit that trade liberalization has been a significant driver of economic growth globally. Trade liberalization, often synonymous with low tariffs, is at the heart of the contemporary world’s unprecedented economic prosperity.

By allowing states to leverage comparative advantage, free trade reduces redundancy and maximizes global economic output. With more efficient economic systems, prices decrease, making more comfortable lifestyles more accessible to more people. The theory of free trade, that it is a tide that lifts all boats, has broadly been born out.

Yet it has become clear that there are costs to the adoption of free trade. Individuals who lose jobs as a result of free trade implementation may struggle to adapt. Between 1997 and 2020, the United States lost approximately 90,000 manufacturing plants and five million jobs. After the People’s Republic of China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, manufacturing communities in the U.S. were effectively abandoned overnight; cheap goods came at the expense of their jobs. Newly unemployed, these workers would struggle for years to find new jobs. Their anger and dissatisfaction are theorized to have contributed to the election of President Trump.

It is of little surprise then, that, since his return to the White House, Mr. Trump has campaigned to deliberalize trade. At the heart of Mr. Trump’s envisioned economic policy is his embrace of tariffs: in his first month in office he has implemented a 10% tariff on China, threatened U.S. allies Canada and Mexico with 25% across-the-board tariffs, and is promising so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on countries around the world.

Although there is understandable rage against the free trade regime, Mr. Trump’s indiscriminate measures will almost certainly raise prices, and just as certainly fail to return jobs to the United States. The New York Times reports that construction costs are projected to increase as a result of Trump’s tariffs; N.P.R. reports that tariffs could increase the price of food imported from Mexico.

If Mr. Trump’s goal is to rectify the damage done to U.S. manufacturing communities by economic liberalization, there are better options than tariffs. The federal government could sponsor job training programs for workers in communities left behind by free trade, for instance. Alternatively, the federal government could subsidize manufacturing in military-critical industries, simultaneously safeguarding both our national security and the livelihoods of Americans left behind by forces outside of their control. Mr. Trump could even continue to persue the path towards a renewable future laid out by President Biden. And in terms of positive-sum investments in American manufacturing, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

By choosing to pursue a retributive regime of tariffs, Mr. Trump won’t only be punishing foreign states. In the end, it is Americans who will pay the cost of Mr. Trump’s war on free trade: in the grocery store aisle, at the car dealership, and on retail websites. Even in the unlikely event that Mr. Trump is successful at restoring American manufacturing, he will only accomplish it through massive economic shocks. Shocks, mind you, that are likely far greater than those experienced in American manufacturing communities over the past several decades.

Not only will there be massive shocks if Mr. Trump continues to implement his tariffs, but economists have empirically proven that tariffs suppress economic growth. Even if we get past the macroeconomic shocks of the tariffs, even if manufacturing jobs return to the U.S., we will still be dealing with reduced growth in perpetuity. The needs of the few will come before the needs of the many.

Running the world’s largest economy (measured by nominal G.D.P.) is a complicated job. But I think that it is an indisputable political miscalculation to privilege the economic complaint, no matter how legitimate, of a small minority of one’s political supporters at the expense of the entire country’s economic future.