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

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Sabrina Siddiqui (0:30)

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

Katrina McEvoy (0:35)

I don't see how you cannot. When they're saying it's easier for them to make money eating the cost of the tariffs than to keep people employed.

Sabrina Siddiqui (0:43)

We're sitting just outside the doors of a factory owned by her employer, for now, Conselmer. They make brass instruments like trumpets and trombones in East Lake, Ohio, a 20-minute drive from Cleveland.

Katrina is wearing a Conselmer T-shirt under a red cardigan, but the shirt isn't especially important to her.

Katrina McEvoy (1:01)

I have several in the closet, and then I guess they just get donated once we close. I don't know. I don't want to put it back on.

Sabrina Siddiqui (1:08)

At the end of June, Conselmer says all 150 employees at the plant will be terminated. It's moving much of the operation offshore to China.

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

Katrina McEvoy (1:22)

In fact, my uncle, who is getting close to 80, this was one of his first jobs.

Sabrina Siddiqui (1:26)

How did you feel about the president's terrorists before the closure of this plan?

Katrina McEvoy (1:30)

I didn't think it was a good idea at all. We're supposed to, you know, it's to the point where you can't find anything where it says Made in America anymore, and I think that's sad for the country in a whole.

Sabrina Siddiqui (1:42)

Of course, Made in America is the whole point of President Trump's tariffs in his telling. By making it more expensive to import goods to the United States, the idea is that factories will want to avoid those tariffs by making things here instead of shipping them here. Critics of the tariffs say they'll just drive up costs for everyone. But what I found in Ohio is that how companies navigate the new tariff regime depends on their supply chains, their finances, and maybe even their relationships with President Trump.

And whatever companies are feeling, their customers, American consumers and voters, have seen their costs of living go up. So much so that Democrats, from the sidelines in Washington, succeeded last year in pushing a new term to describe that economic reality. Affordability crisis.

I'm Sabrina Siddiqui and this is What's News Sunday. Today and over the next couple of months, we'll be hitting the road to report on the costs of everything from manufacturing to food to housing. And to see what the rising cost of living means for primaries ahead of November's midterm elections, including for the republicans in control of congress and the democrats who are trying to define their identity and see an opportunity to retake the house and maybe even the senate. This is The Cost-of-Living Election, Part 1 In this episode, we'll look at how President Trump's trade policy is playing out on the ground in Ohio, which holds primary elections this Tuesday. Then I'll talk to some of my Wall Street Journal colleagues about what the manufacturing sector's challenges mean for hotly contested races in this state, including a senate race that could affect the balance of power in Washington.

At Conselmer, not everyone agrees with Katrina McEvoy. Robert Hines, the president of the union at the plant, says tariffs aren't necessarily the problem, even if they didn't save the factory.

Robert Hines (3:36)

I think they're a good thing if they're executed right. I think they need to be tightly and more strategically placed, especially in manufacturing, like tariffs on brass instruments will be major.

Sabrina Siddiqui (3:48)

Hines works on sousaphones, a massive instrument in the Tuba family. He says a lot of workers at the plant voted for Trump and believed his trade policies would help them. According to them, Conselmer's mismanagement is to blame for the plant's demise.

Hines also points out that the owner of Conselmer, the hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, was on CNBC in 2024, talking up then-candidate Trump's tariffs as a way to keep manufacturing jobs in the US.

John Paulson (4:16)

We've lost thousands of factories, millions of jobs to foreigners because of the unfair trade competition. So what Trump wants to do is create an American manufacturing powerhouse and using tariffs as a way to level the playing field.