Trump, Lutnick, Bessent, and Greer Are Selling Out American Manufacturing Workers — And Two Senators Are Calling Them Out by Name

Donald Trump promised a manufacturing renaissance. What American workers got instead was 108,000 lost manufacturing jobs, a record-high trade deficit in physical goods, and a trade agenda rigged — in the words of two sitting U.S. senators — to reward wealthy corporations and Trump's personal allies while leaving blue-collar workers in the dust.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., fired off a blistering letter Monday to the three men most responsible for executing Trump's economic betrayal of the working class: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The letter, shared first with CNBC, demands that all three answer for the wreckage their policies have inflicted on American manufacturing.

"Blue-collar jobs are disappearing, a trend that economists blame at least in part on the president's historic and volatile tariff policy. The Trump Administration's trade agenda has favored the interests of wealthy corporations and Trump allies, leaving manufacturing workers behind."

Greer, Bessent, and Lutnick did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Their silence speaks volumes.

The data is damning and it comes straight from the government's own numbers. A February analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Democrats on the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee — a panel on which Kelly sits — found that the U.S. economy shed 108,000 manufacturing jobs in the first year of Trump's second term. The very tariffs Trump marketed as a lifeline for factory towns across America have instead hammered the workers they were supposed to save.

And it isn't just jobs. Total construction spending on manufacturing has fallen since a peak in summer 2024, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. While Trump and his cabinet of Wall Street insiders trumpet their trade war as a victory for Main Street, the record shows the opposite: the U.S. trade deficit in physical goods hit a record high in 2025, according to data released by the Census Bureau in February, even as the overall trade deficit narrowed.

Meanwhile, the offshoring that Trump swore he would stop is accelerating — and it's being driven by Trump's own allies. Warren and Kelly called out John Paulson by name: a Trump ally who is shutting down his Ohio brass instrument manufacturing plant and moving operations to China. They also named Whirlpool, which has slashed nearly 500 jobs since Trump's tariffs took effect and is expanding its footprint in Mexico. These aren't abstract statistics. These are real workers, in real American towns, being abandoned while the connected and the wealthy cash out.

"President Trump's disastrous trade and economic policies have hurt American manufacturing, breaking the President's promises to workers and the public."

Trump's tariff regime has already suffered a significant legal rebuke. The Supreme Court struck down a majority of his tariffs in February — the ones he imposed by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 — only for Trump to pivot and slap on a new set of import taxes under a different statutory authority. He has continued to threaten and sporadically impose tariffs wherever he perceives trade imbalances, whipsawing businesses and workers alike with the chaos of his volatility.

The human cost of that chaos lands squarely on working families. Warren and Kelly made sure to name that victim too.

"After campaigning on promises to lower costs for American families 'on day one,' President Trump's disastrous economic policies, including sweeping IEEPA tariffs, have driven up prices for American families and small businesses."

In their letter, Warren and Kelly demanded that Greer, Bessent, and Lutnick explain why the deficit on manufactured goods has ballooned under Trump's watch and lay out exactly how they intend to reverse the damage their trade agenda has inflicted on American industry. Don't hold your breath waiting for an honest answer from the men who engineered this mess — but at least now their names are on the record.