Everybody likes cheap stuff. We bargain hunt constantly, eager to find a way to save a dollar here and a dollar there while buying what we want and need. Clever retailers, eager to convince shoppers that they are saving money, will market sales as a means to entice customers through the door.
At the same time, we notice when things increase in price. Over the past four years, as inflation brought on by excessive government spending tore through the economy, Americans everywhere righteously grumbled about the increased cost of groceries, fuel, and other necessities. In the 2024 election, voters’ concerns about inflation helped doom the Democratic Party and returned President Donald Trump to the White House for a second term.
So, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said the “essence of the American dream” is not “access to cheap goods,” it was widely derided as a betrayal of the concerns that propelled Trump’s victory. At the same time that Trump was vowing to do everything he could to lower consumer costs, a senior official in his administration was casting doubt on the notion that “cheap goods” were important to the nation’s well-being.
Or was he?
“Access to cheap goods,” as Bessent put it, is a nice thing to have, but it is generally not what people define as economic success. That distinction is a crucial part of why Trump aggressively pushed for tariffs on the campaign trail and derided trade deals enacted by previous presidents as disastrous for American workers and manufacturing.
Industrial America was the epitome of the American dream. Entire cities and towns were built because major companies in the steel and auto industries established factories that employed hundreds and even thousands of workers. Each of those factories became the economic lifeblood of those cities, providing its workers with a stable income that allowed them to support their families and live a decently comfortable life in the middle class. With a healthy middle class, retailers could compound the economic success of a region because they had the confidence that there was a stable community eager to spend its income.
That was and continues to be the essence of the American dream. It isn’t how much eggs cost, how affordable a pair of jeans or dress is, or how affordable a brand-new four-door sedan is. It is the ability of every American, regardless of who they are or where they come from, to build a stable life for themselves. That means holding a job that pays a salary that allows an individual to feed and clothe their family, educate their children, own their home, and take a vacation. And while affordability is certainly a part of that, it is not the only thing.
That is what Bessent meant when he said cheap goods are not the American dream. Consumers may flock to Black Friday sales, and retailers may have stars in their eyes at the profit that comes from having a large consumer base eager to buy the latest electronics or fashionable clothing. However, retail spending is not what builds a community.
Without a stable economic engine that provides jobs for the people of a given community, there is no stable customer base for the retailers that provide the goods and services. A declining population with declining real estate values drives people to leave, while the ones who remain are afflicted with a shrinking economy that discourages investment and talent from ever setting foot in it.
Absolutely no one who cannot afford to move and struggles to find work that provides a livable wage thinks about how cheap the goods they need are. If anything, they are worried that, even in a market saturated with low-cost goods, they are struggling to make ends meet.
To make matters worse, this surplus of cheap goods is easily threatened. The industries that were lost to foreign markets stretched the supply chain to the point that foreign countries controlled essential goods for the U.S. economy. When that supply chain was stressed as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, costs increased, and shortages of crucial goods such as baby formula and toilet paper became commonplace. How many people would have been willing to pay an extra 50 cents or a dollar for a can of baby formula, a package of toilet paper, or whatever else they might want because it was made in America and readily available because it was not reliant on a broken supply chain?
Such was the effect of the trade regime that allowed foreign imports to undercut American manufacturers. Industrial towns in the Midwest that once formed the backbone of American manufacturing and industry are now hollowed-out husks, awash with drug use, economic depression, and broken families. While imported groceries, clothes, and other goods may not cost much, the people who inhabit these towns no longer feel as though the American dream is attainable. It is these people that Trump spoke to. His bombastic attitude and willingness to challenge the status quo on everything from trade to foreign military involvement spoke to the very people who saw their communities decimated by the loss of industry and felt betrayed and forgotten by the political leaders that they counted on to help them.
On Wednesday, Trump proclaimed “Liberation Day” and announced a baseline 10% tariff on all imported goods, with much higher rates for certain countries that have large trade deficits and high tariffs on U.S. imports. With so much of what Americans use and consume imported from other nations, there is little doubt that the tariffs will affect the economy in the form of higher prices on consumer goods, a tanking stock market, and perhaps even a broader economic downturn.
The Trump administration has acknowledged that tariffs will cause some economic pain. Indeed, the stock market plunged the morning after Trump announced his tariffs. However, these tariffs have a purpose: to reset the playing field on international trade so American manufacturing can better compete with foreign manufacturers. At the same time, this will reindustrialize the nation and rebuild communities. In other words, it will revive the American dream for the people who have seen it slip from their grasp.
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That is a bet of gargantuan proportions. However, it is one that Trump promised on the campaign trail and has never once shied away from. The president’s actions are the most radical rewriting of the nation’s trade relationships in a century. It is a bet that is premised on the notion that Americans do not see cheap goods as the only economic consideration or even the most important.
If it pays off — if America experiences an industrial renaissance that brings hope and the American dream back to the communities that lost it — Trump will go down in history as one of the most consequential presidents the nation has ever seen. He will be remembered as the president who restored the nation’s industrial base and rejected the notion that cheap goods are the only thing that matters.