White House officials in a Wednesday press release pointed to Trump’s first-term tariffs as proof that the levies work to strengthen the U.S. economy, citing positive study results from the U.S. International Trade Commission, Economic Policy Institute and more.
News Nation Now
April 7, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, released a statement, saying: “Tariffs can be a legitimate and useful tool in industrial policy for well-defined strategic goals, but broad-based tariffs that significantly raise the average effective tariff rate in the United States are unwise. Further, the second Trump administration’s rationale, parameters, and timeline for tariffs have been ever-shifting. … Tariffs should not be a goal unto themselves, but a strategic tool to pair with other efforts to restore American competitiveness in narrowly targeted industrial sectors.”
U.S. News and World Report
April 7, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute, a union-backed think tank, estimated that the Biden executive order raised wages for 390,000 workers, about one fifth of the federal contract workforce.
Northwest Labor Press
April 7, 2025
However, as Economic Policy Institute (EPI) chief economist Josh Bivens noted last week, “because most households depend overwhelmingly on wages from work as their primary source of income and not returns from wealth-holding, the stock market tells us nothing about these households’ economic situations.”
And Trump’s tariffs are expected to hit U.S. households hard, as the cost of his taxes on imports are passed on to consumers.
“Tariffs can be a legitimate and useful tool in industrial policy for well-defined strategic goals, but broad-based tariffs that significantly raise the average effective tariff rate in the United States are unwise,” Bivens and EPI senior economist Adam Hersh stressed in a Thursday statement—which also called out Trump for mischaracterizing one of the think tank’s 2022 analyses.
Common Dreams
April 7, 2025
“Businesses are pulling back on investment plans,” Senior Economist Adam Hersh of the Economic Policy Institute said. “They’re waiting to see what’s going to happen with the consumers pulling back on their consumption spending, so that is not money that’s going into the pockets of small businesses and their communities. Those will trickle through the labor market and the broader economy even before we get to implementing tariffs.”
Hearst TV
April 7, 2025
The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, pro-labor think tank in Washington, D.C., has studied the effects of giving unemployment benefits to striking workers and found it to be good for workers and employers alike, said Daniel Perez, state economic analyst for the organization.
First, he said, lengthy strikes are extremely rare. More than half of U.S. labor strikes end within two days — workers wouldn’t receive pay in those cases — and just 14% last more than two weeks. Second, the policy costs very little — less than 1% of unemployment insurance expenditures in every state that has considered legislation.
Associated Press
April 7, 2025
Adam Hersh of the progressive Economic Policy Institute, which has also long supported tariffs as a trade tool, was no less harsh.
“This is going to go down in history as the worst economic policy mistake that’s ever been made by a head of state,” he said. “It is so thoughtless and reckless it just boggles the mind.”
…
“It’s giving a bad name to tariffs, and tariffs have been and can be effective tools in promoting industrial development,” said Hersh, from the Economic Policy Institute. “But tariffs are not sufficient on their own. They have to be combined with all kinds of other policies, subsidies, and credits,” he added, including expenditures such as those that came out of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as well as his CHIPS and Science Act.
Foreign Policy Magazine
April 7, 2025
…been called illegal by multiple organizations, including the Economic Policy Institute, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Legal Defense…[paywall].
Forbes
April 7, 2025
“Ideally, you want these tariffs to be a strategic. That means doing the homework to know where we have capacity to expand production in the U.S.,” Senior Economist Adam Hersh of the Economic Policy Institute said. “Production may slow down. We just may not have the ability to make cars at those prices and so there could be layoffs and furloughs or even factory closures in the short term.”
Hearst TV
April 7, 2025
The announcement cites several recent studies, including those by the U.S. International Trade Commission and the Economic Policy Institute, that show tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term in office “strengthened the U.S. economy” and “led to significant re-shoring” in manufacturing, steel production and other industries, according to the White House.
UPI
April 7, 2025