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WSJ What’s News

Tariffs’ Messy Reality: The Cost-of-Living Election | Part 1: Ohio

WSJ What’s News

The Wall Street Journal

Daily News, News

4.14.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On the campaign trail and from the Oval Office, President Trump billed tariffs as a means to reclaim America’s historic role as a manufacturing powerhouse. But more than a year since his imposition of significant import taxes, the benefits are uncertain. Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have fallen by about 100,000, or roughly 0.6%, since the start of Trump’s second term. For our special What’s News series The Cost-of-Living Election, WSJ national politics reporter Sabrina Siddiqui met union workers, manufacturing executives and everyday voters in and around Cleveland, Ohio, to uncover what tariffs mean for the economy and the state’s upcoming primary elections. She then explores the potency of tariffs as a political issue with reporters Aaron Zitner and Gavin Bade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Some of the best lessons don't come from a classroom.

0:05.2

They come from experience.

0:07.0

On The Power of Advice, a new podcast series from Capital Group,

0:11.2

you'll hear from CEOs, investors, and founders about how they built careers,

0:16.4

took risks, and reinvented themselves.

0:19.2

If you're starting your own journey, this is the kind of advice you won't want to miss.

0:23.7

Available wherever you get your podcast.

0:26.4

Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.

0:29.9

When you ask Katrina McAvoy if she blames her job loss on tariffs, she has just one answer.

0:35.1

I don't see how you cannot when they're saying it's easier for them to make

0:39.5

money eating the cost of the tariffs than to keep people employed. We're sitting just outside the doors

0:45.6

of a factory owned by her employer for now, Conselmer. They make brass instruments like trumpets and trombones

0:52.4

in East Lake Ohio, a 20-minute

0:54.6

drive from Cleveland.

0:56.6

Katrina is wearing a Consulmer t-shirt under a red cardigan, but the shirt isn't especially

1:00.6

important to her.

1:01.6

Nope, I have several in the closet, and then I guess they just get donated once we close.

1:06.2

I don't know.

1:07.2

I don't want to put it back on.

1:08.9

At the end of June, Conselmer says all 150 employees at the plant will be terminated.

1:14.7

It's moving much of operation offshore to China.

1:18.6

Katrina and her colleagues got their notices the same day I spoke with her.

...

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