Will a trade war with China bring back U.S. factory jobs?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAS PROMISED HIS TARIFFS will usher in a “new golden age” for American workers, harking back to an industrial past that has been lost to decades of globalization.

- BY MIRANDA JEYARETNAM/SINGAPORE

The logic goes that by raising the price of foreign goods, businesses and consumers will be discouraged from importing and instead invest in U.S.-based manufacturing and American-made goods. But the irony, economists say, is that the trade deficits that he seeks to reverse are a sign of the U.S. economy’s relative dominance, not weakness.

“The U.S. is at a state of development where it has moved beyond manufacturing,” Jayant Menon, a research fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, tells TIME. “This is what manufacturing countries are trying to aspire to, and this guy is trying to go the other way.”

What is more likely to happen, economists say, is that as the goods Americans are accustomed to buying relatively cheaply rise dramatically in price, consumers will simply buy fewer things. And more U.S.-based manufacturing wouldn't necessarily result in lower prices because it would still involve higher labor and operating costs. Many manufacturers may calculate that paying tariffs is cheaper than relocating.