Columnist shreds Trump’s economic playbook that tariffs made manufacturing great

Did tariffs make America great? According to a New York Times op-ed published Friday, the short answer is no.

Peter Coy, a veteran business and economics columnist for the Times, dug into a report written by two leading economists who set out on a mission to discover if steep tariffs imposed “during America’s Gilded Age – roughly 1870 to 1900” could be credited with the rise of American manufacturing during the period.

What they concluded undercuts former President Donald Trump’s economic plan for the country...