Donald Trump has placed a high priority on getting back manufacturing jobs. This is ostensibly the point of the tariffs he imposes before he takes them back. 

As many of us have pointed out, the tariff route is not necessarily a clever strategy. Many of the items we import are inputs into manufacturing in other sectors. For example, the big beautiful 50 percent tariff that Trump announced last week on imported steel is in effect a 50 percent tax on the steel that U.S. automakers put into their cars. That is not going to help the U.S. auto industry.

The other part of the story is that foreign countries can and will retaliate. This means that they will impose tariffs on things they buy from us. This could mean that we end up manufacturing more toys and furniture here, but we export fewer airplanes and advanced computer chips. That’s not obviously a win for U.S. workers.

And there is also the risk that the retaliation will take the form of restricting exports of items that are essential inputs for U.S. manufacturing. China seems to be taking this route with restricting the exports of some rare earth minerals where it has a near monopoly on supply.

While we are still early in the Trump Trade Wars ™, it doesn’t look things are going well so far. Job openings in manufacturing in April fell to the lowest level since the pandemic shutdowns.

There are stories we can tell that can make the picture more complicated. Openings depend in part on the number of people who quit, and that is also very low. That could be because workers are happy with their current job, or it could be because they are reluctant to quit because they don’t think they can find a new job if they did.

Either way, it is fair to say that the plunge in job openings in manufacturing is not an encouraging sign. We will get more data when the May jobs report is released on Friday, but so far, the picture is not encouraging.