One year ago, Trump announced his now-infamous Liberation Day tariffs.
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In the stock market, the immediate result was a vicious stock sell-off that sent US indexes spiraling to the brink of a bear market. Global investors — rubbed the wrong way by the prospect of higher prices — rebelled with the “Sell America” trade and dumped US assets.
The economic impact was less immediate, and we’re only now getting a sense of what the ultimate effect may be.
For the one-year anniversary, the Tax Foundation — a non-partisan think tank — looked back at four proposed economic objectives Trump set out at the start of his tariff regime, in order to assess whether the president has delivered:
1. “Jobs and factories will come roaring back”
Reigniting American industry was a clearly stated goal of Trump’s tariff policy framework, but in the year since Liberation Day, the Tax Institute points out that the US economy hasn’t seen an uptick in manufacturing employment.
In fact, the manufacturing sector has lost jobs since April 2025, the data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via FRED
The Tax Foundation clarified that this decline is consistent with the existing downward trend prior to Liberation Day, but noted that volatility from tariff policy changes were likely a drag on investment and hiring decisions.
2. Tariffs will “make America wealthy again”
Trump said tariffs would generate “trillions and trillions of dollars” and “make America wealthy again.”
The Tax Institute finds that Trump’s historically high tariff rates did increase revenue to the US government, although not nearly to the degree initially signaled. Still, it can be argued that he did live up to his promise to make the US “wealthy.”
Meanwhile, tariffs have been the largest driver of the US government’s revenue. Before the Supreme Court ruled against a swath of Trump’s tariffs, they had generated roughly $166 billion in payments.
Altogether, tariffs brought in $264 billion in customs duties in 2025, accounting for nearly 5% of total revenue.
The Tax Foundation did note an offsetting factor: “The net revenue generated by the tariffs is less, because tariffs mechanically reduce how much revenue is raised by income and payroll taxes.”
3. Tariff revenue will “pay down our national debt”
Tariffs did generate revenue for the US government, but there wasn’t a decline in the national deficit.
Trump claimed on Liberation Day that tariff revenue would pay down the US national debt “very quickly.”
The tariff revenue generated didn’t meet what was required to even make a dent in the nation’s $39 trillion debt.
US Congress Joint Economic Committee
The national deficit has increased during Trump’s second term despite the president voicing concerns about the debt and saying tariffs would pay it off.
4. “Stronger competition and lower prices for consumers”
On Liberation Day, Trump said “more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.” But higher costs associated with tariffs did end up impacting American consumers.
“Tariffs raised prices and weighed on economic activity, contrary to claims that they would be paid by foreign countries, lower consumer costs, and boost economic activity,” the Tax Foundation wrote.
Several studies support the notion that consumers take on the cost of tariffs, including one from Federal Reserve economists that drew the ire of the Trump administration.
“Tariffs are taxes on imports legally paid by the importer, and economically paid by a combination of imports, downstream businesses, final consumers, and foreign sellers,” the think tank explained.
“By raising the cost of imported goods, tariffs increase relative prices and can also lead domestic producers to raise prices in response,” they added.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself has credited recent inflation pressures to tariffs.
The Tax Foundation calculated that tariffs acted as a $1,000 average tax increase per US household in 2025 and will increase taxes by another $600 per household in 2026.
