Tariff Backers Urge Congress to Keep Trade Enforcement After Midterms

America's manufacturing lobby has opened its post-midterm campaign with a blunt message to incoming policymakers: keep the tariffs. In a report published Tuesday, the Alliance for American Manufacturing argues that rolling back trade enforcement measures "simply because of who advanced them… that would be a serious mistake," as the group's president, Scott Paul, put it.

The report, titled How Trade Enforcement Strengthens American Manufacturing, doubles as a primer for the next Congress. It walks through U.S. trade policy tools and remedies, explains how they preserve domestic production and jobs, and closes with reform recommendations. Its case studies focus on four sectors — aluminum, steel, glass and solar infrastructure — where the authors say enforcement has delivered after decades of what they call "import surges, global overcapacity and state-directed industrial policies."

What does this change for shippers and manufacturers?

For importers and forwarders, the stakes are simple: tariff durability means continued cost pressure on inbound steel, aluminum and related inputs. For domestic producers, it means the price umbrella stays up.

The report's central statistic is China's share of U.S. manufacturing job losses. China accounted for nearly 60% of American manufacturing jobs lost between 2001 and 2019, the report states. That window, the authors argue, was a period when Washington "frequently underutilized available trade enforcement authorities" while domestic factories saw declines in output, employment and production capability.

Over the past two years, the report says, a correction has taken hold. Companies have committed trillions of dollars to U.S. manufacturing and research and development. Steel is the poster child: U.S. Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs have posted record earnings, driven by tariffs that lifted market prices.

Campaigning versus governing

The political context is less tidy than the industrial data. Carolina Ferrerosa Young, vice president of Wessell Group and the report's author, told a virtual press conference that tariff politics have become polarized by association.

"Because President [Donald] Trump has taken such a strong position on tariffs, there's been a polarized reaction in the electorate around tariffs," Young said.

"I think it's one thing to campaign, however, on these issues and another to actually govern with a nuanced understanding of what the impact is going to be for local communities and working families," added Young, who served as chief economic advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Public polling sharpens the problem for tariff defenders. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Tuesday found 62% of Americans support repealing Trump's tariffs, and just 21% approve of his handling of the cost of living. The survey covered 1,705 U.S. adults nationwide over four days following the midterm elections.

Partisan splits run deep. A separate Council on Foreign Relations poll from August found 61% of Democrats believe the president should not be allowed to impose tariffs without congressional approval. Only 21% of Republicans agree.

Industry backs the bludgeon

The irony of the current moment isn't lost on anyone watching the trade file. The president has used tariffs with what the report's supporters concede is bludgeoning force, yet industry has largely backed the strategy as insurance against foreign subsidies, dumping and market manipulation — practices the report says China and other trade partners have exploited for decades.

Paul expects longstanding critics to keep coming after steel and aluminum tariffs. But he believes the issue has grown bipartisan and the conversation more nuanced since election day. He points to recent history as evidence: Section 232 tariffs enacted during the first Trump administration survived the Biden administration with some modifications, then were renewed and expanded.

"[That] says to me that there is some political durability," Paul said. "My hope is that Democrats will look at those circumstances and make the correct determination" to address overcapacity and unfair trade practices.

The practical read

n Strip away the politics and the commercial picture is straightforward. Tariffs on steel and aluminum have raised domestic market prices enough to produce record earnings for U.S. Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs. That means buyers of metal-intensive goods — construction, automotive, appliances — continue paying more for domestic supply or duties on imports. Repeal would unwind that spread; durability preserves it.

The report itself acknowledges the reform question rather than pretending the toolkit is perfect. Its recommendations section gives incoming lawmakers room to adjust mechanics while keeping the enforcement architecture intact — a middle path between repeal and escalation that neither poll-driven critics nor tariff maximalists seem eager to claim.

With 62% of Americans telling Reuters/Ipsos they want the tariffs gone, and a manufacturing coalition publishing primers to keep them, the incoming Congress faces a genuine choice. Judging by the bipartisan track record of Section 232 so far, the smart money is on tariffs surviving the transition — modified, expanded, and argued over, but not repealed.