Tariffs Could Be a Terrible Price to Pay for “Getting Even”

By Sidney Secular

July 15, 2025

Maybe President Trump should have tarried a bit before going whole hog and hogging the spotlight with tariff declarations that could backfire on him and MAGAs come the next presidential election or even the midterm elections. Prices could go a sight more out of sight by then. Tariffs may only be practicable and effective if we had a manufacturing base to base our comeback and expectations on. We no longer have such a base, and it could take two generations to develop a really competitive one again. Meanwhile, prices could go through the roof if foreign companies raise prices to counteract the tariffs.

The Walmart shopper types and those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder would be most affected by the price increases and take it out on MAGA or Republicans in general come election time. We’re not that comparatively numerous and well-off anymore that the Chinese and other countries that turn out junk couldn’t find the customers they need elsewhere with exploding populations outside the US ready to consume mass-produced, low-priced knick-knacks. They could decline selling to the US because they don’t feel they have to, and the tariffs would be of little consequence then.

The primary American problem is that there simply aren’t enough people around with the experience, expertise, and motivation to produce quality products and services to get us fully back in the game. We let specialists and experts do all our stuff and thinking, and the ranks of experts in any particular area of enterprise are surprisingly thin, except perhaps for the computer gurus who deal with the digital nightmares and complexities we’ve brought upon ourselves. The rant that immigrants will do the jobs Americans won’t do is on target since many younger Americans are too unmotivated and incompetent to do many of them.

Too many lack the work ethic or mental discipline to make through a day of hard or concentrated work or otherwise get inspired enough to make ourselves useful. It sounds nuts, but there are about 400,000 factory and warehouse jobs open today but few with the training or ambition to do these foundational jobs, so they go begging or are filled by immigrants because of the large number of natives letting these opportunities pass them by, or because the immigrants will accept much lower levels of compensation. This is demonstrated by the continuing large listings of help wanted ads post-pandemic, many of which display the salaries involved. That used to be something reserved for negotiations and job interviews in former times.

The problem, or the gradual slide into decline, albeit interspersed with a few positive periods, began innocently enough when FDR instituted the child labor laws in 1936, ostensibly to protect young workers from exploitation, but are really a means to fudge the figures for the number of workers unemployed at the time. No longer could one get the type of work at young ages which allowed one to gain basic know-how, work experience, and to develop an important work ethic. Thus, many young people never got to do a good day’s work until age 18 or later. They were fed much academic material with no means to apply what they were learning, which was to their later detriment. In truth, FDR’s coddling labor laws led slowly tended to feed the trend of creating a nation of lay-abouts.

The wartime draft that began in 1940 kicked the can down the road but gave youth some good military experience which helped develop discipline. However, once the war was over, there was a large surplus of potential workers with little to do but apply for college using the GI Bill, which restricted the labor supply and thus kept wages high, but started the trend to rely too much on a college education to make one’s way in the work world. Many young people started to choose college over learning a useful trade where they would be needed and would be welcomed. As part of this trend, blue collar work in general began to be denigrated. A whole new set of career paths was then established which required a college degree as a prerequisite to enter.

These career paths were for entry primarily into middle-management positions which in actuality were a drain on profits and actually retarded the innovation which was the basis for much American exceptionalism. Thus, the “organization man” culture was created which emphasized moving up the ladder of success within organizations without any special relationship to accomplishing anything that resulted in creating wealth for the economy or the company or fostering innovation. The positions involved were in marketing, communications, business management, and human resources, which were more fluff than productive for the company. Much time was wasted on committee meetings which tend to downplay truly creative ideas and increase the flow of the status quo. These new classes of mouse-wigglers and latte-swiggers waste company and personal time on creating exaggerated resumes, faking it, playing office politics and throwing one’s weight around.

Effort was also misplaced into looking for opportunities in other firms, networking with other professionals in the same field, relocating to other areas around the country where the grass was thought to be greener, so to speak, all with a view on inching up the ladder of success using whatever avenues that present themselves for upward mobility. These professionals eventually wound up with one reaching a level of incompetence per the Peter Principle. Another end result of all of this, is that those who do the least get paid the most, and those who do the most get paid the least. This situation needs a major shake-up to correct, which major economic challenges will help facilitate, before the US can again challenge China and other countries with better entrepreneurial cultures and much better educational systems. This will take some time. However, there is some renewed emphasis now on internships, shop classes, work/study and apprenticeship programs with the MAGA culture leading the way. It will take some time and effort, however, to overcome the over-emphasis on fringe benefits such as vacation time, health benefits, etc. instead of getting the job done in the best fashion, before using tariffs as a tool to increase US competitiveness can be effective.

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