REAL GROWTH — NOT BIDEN’S MONETARY MIRAGE
Durable goods orders in the United States were up 8.2% in 2025. Industrial production has been rising consistently since President Trump took office in January 2025. Manufacturing construction starts are up 20.2% over the last 12 months. Construction starts of electric-power utility facilities are up 68.6% in a single year.
This is the opposite of the Biden-era "growth." That bump in 2021—2022 was the printing press: cash pumped into the system to fund the Green New Deal — solar, wind, ethanol — capacity that produced inflation, not industrial power. As Federal Reserve nominee Kevin Warsh and President Trump have both made clear, that wasn’t growth. It was a burn pit.
What we are seeing now is real expansion of the physical economy. The S&P Global Manufacturing PMI hit 52.3 in March — the eighth consecutive month of growth. Goods-producing employment added 43,000 jobs in March; construction added 26,000. The Association of General Contractors reports their members would hire even more
THE TARIFFS ARE WORKING — AND THEY AREN’T GOING AWAY
Between Liberation Day on April 2, 2025 and February 2026, the U.S. goods trade deficit fell 24%. The deficit with China is down 32%. With the European Union, it’s down nearly 40%. Tariffs have generated a 4.9% increase in federal receipts.
And they aren’t going away. People get nagged about this — your neighbor gets nagged about this. The Section 232 tariffs (1962 Trade Expansion Act) on steel, copper, and aluminum, the Section 301 and 122 tariffs (1974 Trade Act), and now the expansion of 232 to derivative products — products that contain steel, copper, or aluminum content — replace the IEEPA-based tariffs the Supreme Court overturned. Tariffs have been a feature of the American System since Hamilton and Washington. They’re continuing.