Is protectionism paying off? President Donald Trump is trumpeting the announcement of a new steel mill in Iowa, promising 1,750 jobs, as evidence of the gains from his trade wars. America is successful; but it succeeds despite the trade wars, not because of them.

America exported more in 2025 than ever before. American business exported $3.4 trillion in goods and services, according to the Census Bureau. That’s up from the previous year’s record of $3.2 trillion. Americans exported more in 2025 than all but five other countries produced. The extra tariffs placed on American products in response to new American tariffs are headwinds against this trend.

A commonly held opinion says that the United States can’t compete on the world stage. That other countries prop up their industries with subsidies and tariffs that penalize American producers. That other countries are fine with brutalizing workers to flood the market with cheap goods to shut down U.S manufacturers. And so free trade will just leave American industry to rot.

But look at the scoreboard. America is not behind.

• As stated, exports are at record levels. They’ve grown a lot, too. American exports twice what it did in 2002, adjusted for inflation.

• No other big country is anywhere near the United States for median income.

• The country keeps adding jobs. There are 158.5 million jobs in America, and 2025 had another record high.

• The total value of economic production, adjusted for inflation, is also at record highs. The country produces two times what it did in 1996.

Let me share one other piece of evidence about the global demand for American things. There is a game I like to play using the Street View feature of Google Maps. I go to a far flung city I haven’t heard of before, and I search the streets for something American. It could be someone driving a Chevy. It could be a Coca-Cola machine, a restaurant serving American food — often promoted in English, regardless of the local language. It rarely takes long to find something. Here is a man wearing a LeBron James t-shirt in the city of Baguio in the Philippines. America offers a lot that people around the world want.

This isn’t what happens to a country whose glory days are in the past. It isn’t what happens when you’re being taken advantage of through exploitative global competition. It’s not what happens to a deindustrialized country gone to pot.

In other words, American officials started a trade war under false pretenses. The American public is paying a price for it.

You can find evidence at your kitchen table. Americans insist on being within arm’s length of black pepper when having their meals, though few of them have seen the plant that the spice comes from. The peppercorn comes from a tropical vine, and much of the crop comes to America from Vietnam. It is subject to new tariffs. I don’t think we’re protecting American domestic black pepper farmers.

The effects of tariffs on black pepper trickle throughout the economy. Food processors, wholesalers, distributors, grocers and restauranteurs use black pepper. The spice doesn’t get into spork packets by mistake, and now it’s more expensive for everyone involved.

Trade policy hasn’t been enough to keep black pepper off the American table, and the trade wars haven’t been enough to stop the broader forces of American growth. Income, employment, production and exports are at record levels. But that’s despite the trade wars, not because of them.

Lawmakers should stop playing pretend that America is falling behind. Perhaps if they do, they will notice that their attempts to level the playing field with tariffs have tilted the competitive environment against Americans. The country has done well and will do better without all the self-defeating tariffs.

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