The tariffs were supposed to be the economic engine that brought factory floors roaring back to life across America. Instead, roughly 89,000 manufacturing jobs vanished in the ten months after their announcement.

A new report from the Advancing American Freedom Foundation, first obtained by Fox News Digital, delivers a blunt verdict on President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs: the sweeping trade policy not only failed to revive US manufacturing employment, it actively slowed job creation. The analysis arrives at a politically awkward moment, months after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs entirely and as businesses line up to reclaim an estimated $166 billion in refunds.

Trump announced the Liberation Day tariffs on April 2, 2025, positioning them as a bold reset of American trade policy. The measures, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), slapped rates ranging between 10% and 50% on imports, with effective tariff rates climbing by about 5 percentage points under the IEEPA framework.

By March 2026, total manufacturing job losses since Trump’s second-term inauguration were estimated between 82,000 and 102,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited in the report.

Independent analyses from the Center for American Progress and the Tax Foundation point to approximately 2,800 factory closures as a consequence of the tariff regime, with the average American household absorbing roughly $700 in additional annual costs.

On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the IEEPA-based tariffs were unconstitutional. The decision also swept away related de minimis exemptions and retaliatory tariff structures that had been built on top of them. That ruling opened the door for businesses to pursue the $166 billion in potential refunds.

In October 2025, threats of 100% duties on certain Chinese imports triggered a cascade of crypto liquidations exceeding $18 billion to $19 billion. Bitcoin dropped roughly 8% in the aftermath.