Jobs and Manufacturing Are on the Ballot

American manufacturing is on the rebound, and that good news could hardly come at a better time for President Donald Trump, as Republicans gird themselves for the midterm elections just two months from now.

Not that manufacturing is the only sector that's on a hiring spree — businesses across the board added 162,000 new jobs in August.

Even The New York Times calls the latest employment numbers "zesty."

The paper quoted T. Rowe Price's chief U.S. economist, Blerina Uruci, saying: "It's a very good report; I can't emphasize that enough. And it perhaps shows that financial conditions more broadly are not that tight."

The workforce participation rate rose as well — which matters because people who drop out of the labor force are invisible in unemployment rates that only count those who are looking for work.

This economy is pulling Americans who'd given up hope off the sidelines and putting them to work.

That's a success not only for Trump's economic policy but for his immigration crackdown as well — it's no longer so easy for companies to abandon Americans by hiring foreign workers instead.

Establishment economists predicted none of this:

They were certain Trump's tariffs would be catastrophic and American industry would contract with constant infusions of foreign labor.

Relentless efforts to stop the president's economic agenda in the courts created uncertainty that's bad for business:

Companies have to make plans based on a predictable environment of taxation and regulation. If nobody knows whether tariffs will remain in place or not, nobody can afford to make long-range decisions about reshoring jobs and buying from American suppliers instead of sources overseas.

That's what the president's foes — who want maximum economic globalization — were counting on.

Voters chose Trump's agenda over the alternatives in 2024, when they sent him back to the White House with full Republican control of Congress.

But losing an election doesn't matter if you can use lawfare in the courts to sabotage implementation of what the voters asked for.

Yet all the lawfare of the past year hasn't stopped the America First employment agenda from succeeding.

The results have been especially impressive in manufacturing, where the latest numbers show the biggest growth coming from jobs that make long-lasting products.

As Peter Navarro, who served as director of Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, notes in a column for RealClearMarkets, "Manufacturing employment rose by 16,000 in August, with nearly all of that gain coming from durable-goods manufacturing, which added 15,000 jobs."

Overall, "manufacturing employment is up 58,000" jobs this year, "driven by a 94,000-job gain in durable goods."

It's important to know the background here: Globalization's advocates treat the disappearance of America's manufacturing jobs as an inevitability. They say technological advances will destroy more of those jobs than free trade does.

But they draw the wrong conclusion from technology's impact on employment: It's because many jobs will be lost to automation that we shouldn't undercut the rest of our manufacturing workforce by adopting trade policies that exacerbate job losses.

The profits to be had from simply moving a factory from America to a foreign country where labor is cheaper are, as economists know, "arbitrage" gains — which disappear as wages equalize over time.

As wages rise in the rest of the world, the disadvantage that higher-wage American workers have faced in competing with them starts to fade away.

Over time, this makes the case for returning manufacturing to America steadily stronger.

But first, our manufacturing base had to survive peak globalization — and if not for Trump, the policies that were accelerating the loss of our country's manufacturing jobs would never have stopped.

What Trump and the GOP are achieving with their trade and jobs policies shouldn't be judged from a baseline of zero — the gains have to be compared to how big the losses would have been without this new approach.

Coming out of the Biden years in January 2025, America had shed 199,000 manufacturing jobs in just the preceding 16 months, according to industry analyst Alan Tonelson.

Biden left manufacturing in a deepening hole Trump has had to pull the sector out of.

And he's doing it — first slowing the job losses that had been accumulating for years, and now increasing manufacturing employment for each of the past several months.

In just about eight weeks, voters across the country are going to pass judgment on Republican control of Congress.

Trump won't be on the ballot Nov. 3, but jobs will be — especially those in manufacturing.

They'll be lost if a Democratic Congress adds its power to the campaign in the courts that's trying to drag America back to the age of offshoring.

There's still money to be made by arbitraging away American jobs — or importing a cheaper workforce into our own country.

Voters haven't changed their minds about immigration or manufacturing, however: They want what Trump promised, and what the latest figures show he's delivering.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 09/01/26: How to Tackle Domestic Extremists' Foreign Enablers
• 08/25/26: Why Hasan Piker Mocks a Murdered Man
• 08/18/26: Dems' Southern Strategy
• 08/11/26: Homebuyers Deserve the Facts About Crime and Schools
• 08/04/26: Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation
• 07/28/26: Democratic Socialists of America vs. John Adams
• 07/21/26: Why Dems Can't Do Better Than Kamala Harris in 2028
• 07/14/26: Prescription for a Socialist Workforce
• 07/07/26: The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem
• 06/30/26: Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate
• 06/23/26: Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America?
• 06/16/26: University Professors Against Academic Freedom
• 06/09/26: Pope Leo Courts the Global Left
• 06/02/26: A Mass-Graves Myth Is Media Malpractice
• 05/28/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/26/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/12/26: Dems finally come clean 'bout their radical design
• 05/05/26: The Silenced Generation
• 04/28/26:Colleges Are Making Political Violence Worse
• 04/21/26:Immigration Amnesty by Any Other Name
• 04/14/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 04/07/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 03/17/26: Why Are Senate Dems Making Air Travel Worse?
• 03/10/26: Cuba Should Accept Trump's 'Friendly Takeover'
• 03/03/26: Immigration Enforcement Saves Lives
• 02/24/26: How a Party Offends Its Voters
• 02/17/26: Why Are Anti-ICE Activists Building Borders?
• 02/10/26: A Japanese Lesson for Troubled Britain
• 02/03/26: The Trump Coalition Wins But the GOP Brand Doesn't
• 01/27/26: Canada Should Warm to Trump's Arctic Plans
• 01/20/26: From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
• 01/13/26: Woman Who Weaponized Car Against I.C.E Endangered Her Life -- and Yours
• 01/06/26: Tim Walz Personifies Dems' Decline
• 12/30/25: Harvard Says Yes to Discrimination, No to Western Civ
• 12/23/25: JD Vance Gets America's Creed and Heritage Right
• 12/16/25: Trump's Inflation Trap
• 12/09/25: Biden's Immigration Debacle Is the Media's, Too
• 12/02/25: 'Iryna's Law' and the Bad Judges Who Make It Necessary
• 11/26/25: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Exit Is a Warning to Republicans
• 11/19/25: Trump Hasn't Lost Hispanics (Yet)
• 11/11/25: Trump's Tariffs on Trial
• 10/28/25: MAGA Makes Allies Great Again
• 10/21/25: How To Make the AmericaS Great Again
• 10/16/25: Columbus Day Celebrates Our Civilization
• 10/09/25: Why Sharpies Are Made in America Again
• 09/30/25: Assata Shakur and Other Parents of Political Violence
• 09/09/25: Who's Accountable for Autopen Pardons?
• 09/02/25: Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion
• 08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
• 08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
• 08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
• 08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
• 07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
• 07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
• 07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
• 07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
• 06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
• 06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print