Expert says Trump's tariffs only benefit him and it will be 'bad for the US economy'

After a long period of debate and deliberation, the U.S. Supreme Court finally struck down President Donald Trump's sweeping emergency tariffs, deeming them illegal. However, the administration didn't back down, and Trump swiftly imposed a 10% standard universal tariff, only to raise it to 15% later, using different legislation - Section 122 that imposes tariff measures only for 150 days. While the president argued it was in the interest of the economy, economists think it was only to boost his ego. Recently, journalist Steven Greenhouse detailed in an op-ed how the new tariffs have hurt the nation and will possibly continue to do so.

"Trump’s decision to create a whole new set of tariffs will be bad for both the US economy and the world economy," Greenhouse wrote in his piece on The Guardian. He argued that the new 15% tariffs have hurt the nation's manufacturers, consumers, and foreign trade relations. The new tariffs created a new wave of uncertainty that corporate America is dealing with, on top of geopolitical tensions. Greenhouse claimed it will cause "hesitation" and even "some paralysis" with companies not willing to execute expansion or hiring plans. 

This was evident in Trump's first year, as the country lost 108,000 factory jobs in 2025, as per The Joint Economic Committee, contrary to the administration's claims that the tariffs would help re-shore manufacturing jobs back to the US. Greenhouse argued that the U.S. manufacturers suffered. He cited Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a trade economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who told the Wall Street Journal, “The whole uncertainty of tariff policy is really not favorable for employment or investment." 

The tariffs, which Trump claims were mostly paid for by foreign corporations, haven't done much good for the U.S. consumers either. Greenhouse argued that the tariffs raised prices on almost everything, including products like coffee, clothes, and furniture. He cited the nonpartisan Tax Foundation report that estimated that Trump’s levies on imports “amounted to an average tax increase per US household of $1,000”. Furthermore, the Yale Budget Lab found that core goods and durable goods prices went up by 1.3% and 1.4%, respectively, last year, as importers passed about 40 to 76% of the tariff costs to the consumers for core goods, and 47 to 106% of the tariff costs for durables. Recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that "Nearly 90% of the economic burden is borne by American businesses and consumers, with the average U.S. tariff on imports rising to 13% in 2025 from less than 3%."

Greenhouse also pointed out that the new 15% tariff has worsened foreign relations as well, with the U.K., Australia, and Europe rethinking the recent trade deals they made to lower the tariffs. “Pure tariff chaos on the part of the US government,” Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s international trade committee, recently wrote on social media. “No one can make sense of it anymore – only unanswered questions and growing uncertainty for the EU and other US trading partners," he added.

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