“You’re a gigantic reason why I’m standing here—standing here today as your president,” Biden said in a June keynote address at the AFL-CIO annual convention in Philadelphia. “I owe you. From the very beginning of my running for office, back when I was a kid, it was labor, the unions.”
Yet despite all he believes he owes American laborers, Biden’s economic policies are punishing them as consumers.
Consider that supposedly workercentric trade policy. Biden has left in place many of the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, including the levies on aluminum and steel. By artificially hiking the price of imported steel, those tariffs are supposed to boost domestic production, creating more and better-paying steelworker jobs. But the cost of the tariffs rebounds onto every industry that uses steel to make other products. While about 57,000 Americans work in steelmaking jobs, more than 12 million are employed in manufacturing jobs that use steel. The tariffs hurt those workers.
This story is from the October 2022 edition of Reason magazine.
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This story is from the October 2022 edition of Reason magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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