Presidential Election of 2024

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    Trump and Harris Want to Revive Manufacturing, but How Much Could They Actually Do?

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    The policy focus on the industry has changed from job quantity to job quality. And while federal incentives matter, local factors are more important.In recent weeks, the presidential candidates have been tussling over a familiar campaign issue in postindustrial America: how to reinvigorate manufacturing.Former President Donald J. Trump has proposed stiff tariffs on nearly all imports as a way of forcing foreign companies to make their goods in the United States, an escalation of a strategy that did not work during his term. “We’re going to take their factories,” Mr. Trump declared recently.Building on the Biden administration’s approach, Vice President Kamala Harris has promised tax credits and more apprenticeships to strengthen factory towns and invest in advanced technologies, ensuring they “are not just invented in America but built here.”In truth, no president can single-handedly control the growth of specific industries. Larger economic forces like recessions and exchange rates tend to play a much more powerful role. But some policies can help or hinder their progress.Over the last four years, policy and macroeconomic factors have combined to begin reshaping the manufacturing industry. While job growth has been flat for the past two years — as interest rates have clamped down on expansion and a strong dollar has dulled exports — shifts in the composition and location of it are underway beneath the surface.But first, a more fundamental question: Why do politicians care so much about manufacturing, anyway?Which manufacturing sectors have been growing fastest?Domestic output of semiconductors and other electrical components has expanded by 30 percent since the beginning of 2020. Other products, not as much.

    Notes: The semiconductor category includes other components. Source: Federal ReserveBy The New York TimesWhere manufacturing jobs have shifted since the pandemicBetween January 2020 and March 2024, the West Coast and Northeast have lost factory employment while many states in the Southeast have gained.

    Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Labor DepartmentBy The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    World Braces for Bigger Trade Wars if Trump Wins

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    Business owners and foreign governments are preparing for high tariffs and trade disruptions, depending on the outcome of the election.When you’re in the whiskey business, you’re always making predictions about the future.From the time grain grown around the Midwest enters Sonat Birnecker Hart’s distillery on the North Side of Chicago, it will be four to 10 years before the whiskey is shipped to buyers. So running her business requires careful projections about demand.Those calculations have become harder of late. With the U.S. presidential election looming, many businesses around the world are facing uncertainty about the future of American trade policy and the tariffs that products will face in global markets.For the whiskey industry, the stakes are particularly high. In March, a 50 percent tariff on American whiskey exports to Europe will snap into effect unless the European Union and the United States can come to an agreement to stop the levies.The outcome may depend on who is in office. Both former President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have embraced tariffs, but their plans differ significantly. Ms. Harris’s campaign has said she would use tariffs in a “targeted” fashion — possibly mirroring the approach of President Biden, who recently imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, silicon chips and solar panels. Like Mr. Biden, she has emphasized working closely with allies.Mr. Trump, in contrast, has said his approach to trade would be even more aggressive than the trade wars of his first term, when he imposed stiff tariffs on allies and rivals to obtain concessions and try to bolster American manufacturing. He has proposed a 60 percent tariff on products from China and a tariff of more than 10 percent on other goods from around the world.A 50 percent tariff on American whiskey exports to Europe will take effect in March unless the United States and European Union reach an agreement.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Plans Could Spur Inflation While Slowing Growth, Study Finds

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    A nonpartisan economic analysis warned that deporting migrants and increasing tariffs would damage the U.S. economy.Former President Donald J. Trump’s proposals to deport millions of migrants and impose new tariffs on imports from around the world would slash U.S. economic growth and employment and cause inflation to rebound sharply, according to a new analysis published on Thursday by the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics.That analysis also assumed that Mr. Trump would try to encroach on the independence of the Federal Reserve. He has not floated such a proposal but has suggested that presidents should have input into the central bank’s policies and in the past tried to publicly push the Fed to lower interest rates.The assessment of Mr. Trump’s policies was published days after the Republican presidential candidate pitched his plan to create a manufacturing “renaissance” in America by cutting corporate taxes and regulations and increasing tariffs by as much as 200 percent. Economists have been skeptical about the viability of many of Mr. Trump’s proposals, and some of them could be difficult to enact. But the new report argued that if taken together, the policies would inflict significant damage on the U.S. economy.“While Trump promises to ‘make the foreigners pay,’ our analysis shows his policies will end up making Americans pay the most,” Warwick J. McKibbin, Megan Hogan and Marcus Noland wrote in their report.The study from the Peterson Institute, which tends to favor free trade, examined the effects of three prominent parts of Mr. Trump’s agenda: deporting 8.3 million unauthorized migrants, levying 10 percent tariffs on all imports and 60 percent tariffs on imports from China, and eroding the Federal Reserve’s independence by allowing the president to influence interest rate policy.The study suggested that Mr. Trump wanted to weaken the Fed’s independence, citing a Wall Street Journal article that said his allies were drawing up a plan to blunt the central bank’s ability to freely set interest rates. It also noted that Mr. Trump has said he believes presidents should have a “say” on interest rate policy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris Now Has an Economic Plan. Can It Best Trump’s Promises?

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    A central question in the final stretch of the election is if Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposals will cohere into an economic argument that can top former President Donald J. Trump’s.Vice President Kamala Harris has a plan for the economy: a glossy, 82-page booklet detailing proposals on housing, taxes and health care that her campaign handed out to supporters gathered at a campaign event in Pittsburgh this week.Former President Donald J. Trump has nothing so detailed. The issues section of his campaign website is spare. He has coughed up a string of four- or five-word slogans promising tax cuts, some of which even his advisers cannot fully explain. He has toyed with a tariff as high as 20 percent on every good imported into the United States, promised to deport millions of immigrants to reduce the demand for housing and boasted that he can halve energy prices in a year.Even with such an improvisational, loosely defined agenda, he is still leading Ms. Harris on the economy in polls, though his advantage is shrinking in some surveys. Many economists have warned that Mr. Trump’s promises, if turned into concrete policy, could slow growth, raise consumer prices and balloon the federal deficit.But many voters find Mr. Trump’s punchy promises easy to grasp. His basic message of lower taxes, less regulation and less trade with other countries helped carry him to the White House once before. A majority of Americans fondly remember the economy in the first three years of his administration, before the pandemic and years of elevated inflation.A central question in the final stretch of the presidential race is if Ms. Harris’s more detailed — but in many cases still not fully formed — stack of policy proposals will cohere into an economic argument that can top that.To a remarkable degree in a deeply polarized country, Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump have many of the same stated goals for the economy. Lower costs. Reduce regulations. Cut taxes for the middle class. Incentivize corporations to build their products in the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris’s Economic Pitch: Capitalism for the Middle Class

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    In a major address in Pittsburgh, the vice president praised business and used technical language to court economy-minded voters skeptical of big government.Vice President Kamala Harris wants voters to know that she is not a socialist.That was the clear, unspoken theme of Ms. Harris’s nearly 40-minute economic policy speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. It was why she paraphrased Warren Buffett, cited a survey of top economists and praised entrepreneurs in language that echoed Republican Senator Mitt Romney’s presidential run a dozen years earlier.Ms. Harris is locked in a tight presidential race with former President Donald J. Trump. Polls show that the economy remains the biggest issue in the race and that many undecided voters have concerns about Ms. Harris’s ability to make things better. Mr. Trump has tried to deride Ms. Harris as a socialist, if not a communist. Polls suggest those attacks have raised doubts in some swing voters’ minds about how Ms. Harris would wield government power to manage the economy.And so, in what was billed as a major economic address with only weeks to go in the campaign, Ms. Harris sought to put those doubts to rest. In muted and technical language that seemed designed to court on-the-fence voters skeptical of the government’s ability to solve major economic problems, Ms. Harris embraced capitalism and called herself a pragmatist who would not govern by ideology.In front of an audience filled with business owners and entrepreneurs at the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, Ms. Harris promised to build an economy that gains strength from a growing middle class, grounded in “fairness, dignity and opportunity.”“I promise you I will be pragmatic in my approach,” she said. “I will engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation. Because I believe we shouldn’t be constrained by ideology, and instead should seek practical solutions to problems, realistic assessments of what is working and what is not, applying metrics to our analysis, applying facts to our analysis and stay focused, then, not only on the crises at hand but on our big goals, on what’s best for America over the long term.”A moment later, she added: “Look, I am a capitalist.”Ms. Harris could have chosen a different path — one that many progressives have urged her to take. She could have more clearly delineated who she sees as the villains of the economy — namely big corporations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Low-Tax, High-Tariff Strategy Could Clash With Economic Realities

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    The former president’s efforts to compel companies to remain in the United States had limited success while he was in the White House.As former President Donald J. Trump makes his closing economic argument ahead of the election, he is outlining a vision for a manufacturing renaissance that reprises a familiar pitch: Make goods in America and enjoy low taxes, or face punishing tariffs.Mr. Trump’s pitch combines the type of carrots-and-sharp-sticks approach that he called “America First” during his first term, when he imposed stiff tariffs on allies and competitors while lowering taxes on American firms.During a speech in Savannah, Ga., on Tuesday, Mr. Trump suggested he would go far beyond that initial approach and adopt what he rebranded a “new American industrialism.”The former president proposed creating “special” economic zones on federal land, areas that he said would enjoy low taxes and relaxed regulations. He called for companies that produce their products in the United States — regardless of where their headquarters are — to pay a corporate tax rate of 15 percent, down from the current rate of 21 percent. Businesses that try to route cars and other products into the United States from countries like Mexico would face tariffs as high as 200 percent.But Mr. Trump’s vision of a “manufacturing renaissance” comes when Americans are increasingly wary of foreign investment, particularly from Asia. And while he imposed steep tariffs during his presidency, his efforts to keep American companies from shifting production overseas ran into the harsh realities of lower-wage labor and technological advancements in other countries.While Mr. Trump was in office, manufacturing employment was essentially flat before the pandemic and had declined by the time he left office. In January 2021, the Alliance for American Manufacturing described his promises of an industrial resurgence as “mostly rhetoric.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Harris to More Fully Detail Economic Plans

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    Vice President Kamala Harris is set to ramp up her economic message this week, with a speech reframing her policy vision and a lengthy new document describing her approach in more detail.Her focus on economic issues comes at a pivotal moment, as many voters remain skeptical of her ability to improve the economy, which has been a top issue in the presidential campaign.Ms. Harris’s economic speech in Pittsburgh on Wednesday and the policy blueprint, described by three people familiar with the matter, are part of an effort by Ms. Harris’s campaign to weave together various economic proposals into a broader, thematic message.Over the course of her truncated campaign, Ms. Harris has released plans to offer assistance to home buyers, expand the child tax credit and raise taxes on large corporations and high-income Americans. Like her Republican rival, former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Harris has not offered detailed plans on many other issues. The expected document will be a roughly 80-page overview of her economic policy priorities, though it is unclear how many specifics it will include.A goal for Ms. Harris’s campaign is to present a tangible economic plan that it can contrast with Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint that Mr. Trump has tried to distance himself from, according to one of the people familiar with the campaign’s thinking.The Harris campaign declined to comment.Many voters still say they want to know more about Ms. Harris, and the economy remains the top issue in the election. In recent polls of Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina conducted by The New York Times and Siena College, 12 percent of voters who are still open to changing their mind on a candidate said they had concerns about Ms. Harris’s handling of the economy. Mr. Trump led in all three states.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    After Fed Cuts Rates, Biden Will Claim Credit for Economy’s Strength

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    The president’s speech on Thursday won’t be a “victory lap,” officials said, but it will celebrate falling inflation and borrowing costs along with solid growth.President Biden is set to declare on Thursday that the economy has finally reached a turning point he has long sought. With price growth cooling and borrowing costs beginning to fall, he will cast the economic moment as vindication for his often-criticized management of the recovery from the pandemic recession.But Mr. Biden will stop short of “declaring victory” over inflation in his speech to the Economic Club of Washington, administration officials said.Instead, the president will stress the need for further action to bring down the costs of housing, groceries and other daily necessities that continue to frustrate American consumers. That is a nod to the politics of price growth, which are challenging for Vice President Kamala Harris as she seeks to succeed Mr. Biden in the November presidential election.“The president knows this is no time for a victory lap, which is why he will talk about the work ahead,” Jeffrey Zients, the White House chief of staff, told reporters on Wednesday.Still, Mr. Biden appears poised to more boldly claim credit for the economy’s performance than he has in recent months. The president and Ms. Harris have struggled to shake off voter discontent over an inflation surge earlier in his presidency that has left many Americans with a lingering case of sticker shock.In recent weeks, the president has been buoyed by a run of good news on prices, including for gasoline, groceries and the overall inflation rate, as well as the first report of rising real incomes for the typical American since the pandemic began. Mortgage rates have fallen from their recent highs, and on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point and signaled further cuts this year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More