by Hannah Knowles
(c) 2025 , The Washington Post
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – One month into a sweeping new tariff regime that President Donald Trump vowed would bring jobs and factories “roaring back,” a Pennsylvania manufacturing hub is full of skepticism.
Trump once told supporters here in the Lehigh Valley that they know “better than almost any place in this country” how global trade has “outsourced your industries” and “wiped out your steel mills.” Now, even in one of the communities the president suggested would benefit most from his tariffs, his economic overhaul is disrupting lives – and testing some voters’ patience in an election-deciding swing state.
New hires at a local truck-making plant had just started on the shop floor last month when their company announced an abrupt change: Layoffs that could hit more than 10 percent of the workforce and that the company blamed on tariffs and other economic uncertainty. Even Trump’s fans sometimes grimace at his plans to remake the world economy, worried about higher costs in a politically competitive area still scattered with lawn signs that read, “TRUMP LOW PRICES KAMALA HIGH PRICES.”
Almost two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of tariffs, and a lasting backlash could be especially consequential for Republicans in areas such as the Lehigh Valley, a perennial Rust Belt battleground where Trump’s campaign pitch resonated with many voters.
Trump’s tariffs have put pressure on some of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents in Congress – including the local congressman, freshman Ryan Mackenzie – as they try to defend Trump’s agenda while also acknowledging their constituents’ concerns.
Officials here are doubtful that any tariffs, no matter how drastic, can re-create the economy of the past, when one steel company’s facilities in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, alone employed 30,000 people. Manufacturing is still the biggest industry in the Lehigh Valley, with investment booming in recent years. At the same time, leaders are proud that they managed to diversify their economy after Bethlehem Steel collapsed decades ago.
Brian Higgins, a longtime Republican commissioner in Lower Macungie Township, just north of the truck plant, said it’s hard to imagine manufacturing rebounding to where it was decades ago. “I don’t think anybody thinks that you could bring the Lehigh Valley back to what it was,” Higgins said. “Could we bring some manufacturing back there? Probably, but not to the extent that people believe.”
“I just think it’s gonna cost more money, and then it’s going to hurt us with retaliatory tariffs,” said Higgins, a self-described “Reagan Republican” who could not bring himself to vote for Trump.
Trump argues that levying tariffs on imports will give him leverage for trade deals and ultimately compel companies to ramp up production in the U.S. Critics say the strategy will raise costs for consumers and destabilize the economy while leaving businesses too uncertain about the future to make plans.
“The Trump administration’s policies are delivering much-needed economic relief for everyday Americans while laying the groundwork for a long-term restoration of American Greatness,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, noting that inflation cooled in March and that gross private domestic investment has increased by 22 percent in the first quarter of 2025.
Employers added 177,000 jobs last month, a strong showing despite the upheaval from Trump’s tariffs announced April 2. In interviews, Lehigh Valley voters who had heard about the Mack layoffs often brushed them off as routine – the company has downsized before – or said they weren’t sure they believed the firm’s explanation.
But many, including Trump voters, also said they are bracing for economic pain in the valley, which spans two counties: Lehigh, which Democrat Kamala Harris won by less than 3 points last fall, and Northampton, a bellwether that frequently backs the winners of presidential elections and went narrowly for Trump.
Adrienne Rinehimer, 51, said she’s building a house and might push back her timeline if prices get too high. Retiree Rick Janko was mostly supportive of the president’s agenda but rolled his eyes at claims that tariffs will bring manufacturing back. Like Rinehimer, he cast his ballot for Trump last year.
“How much are you going to pay for something?” Janko asked. “Let’s be honest, anything bought in America is always more expensive.”
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Workers divided over tariffs
Workers at Mack Trucks – where the terms of the layoffs are still under discussion – are split, said union official Dan Hand, who just celebrated his 27th anniversary there. United Auto Workers leadership endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris last fall, but many union members support Trump.
Mack employees approached by The Washington Post mostly declined to talk, sometimes saying they didn’t want to get in trouble. But Hand, the alternate shop chair for the Mack unit of UAW Local 677, said he knows some of his colleagues were taken aback at Trump’s plans.
“There are a few people that think they made a mistake the way that they voted,” Hand said. He declined to discuss his vote, saying only that he is a registered Republican.
Other workers at Mack are staunchly behind Trump and unmoved by the layoffs – more worried, they said, about the years-long offshoring of jobs to foreign countries. Mack’s parent company Volvo Group announced last year that it would build a new truck plant in Mexico, where average salaries are much lower than the roughly $33-an-hour its Pennsylvania production employees can earn.
Johnathan Watkins, 47, who performs electrical testing at Mack, said “ups” and “downs” are to be expected in his industry and noted that he was laid off in 2020 and then brought back. The stock market is “cyclical” too, he said, brushing off the wild fluctuations the tariffs have triggered.
“I think that tariffs are needed to equalize the playing field,” said Watkins, an independent who voted third-party in 2016 but backed Trump in 2020 and 2024, impressed with his first term.
“Do I think everything’s going to come back? No,” Watkins said, meaning manufacturing jobs. “Do I think anything coming back to employ American workers is a good thing? Absolutely.”
Sitting next to Watkins at the union hall, Hand said it wouldn’t be easy.
“It’s not going to be something that can just happen in a year or two,” he said.
Hand had some thoughts for Trump. “If you’re going to use the tariffs, you need to use them the right way and not keep on backpedaling,” he said, alluding to the president’s recent shifts. “Tariffs most likely work better if they’re targeted rather than being blanketed.”
Don Cunningham, president of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, said the tariffs are “all everybody talks about” in his circles right now. Many businesses are still trying to figure out what the shifting tariffs mean for them: “Nobody’s walked away, but everybody’s kind of just tapping the brakes a little bit,” he said.
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Tariffs put Republican congressman in a vise
Democrats are already using Trump’s tariffs against Republicans, telling voters that he has broken his promise to bring down costs and gearing up to press GOP lawmakers on the issue in the 2026 midterms. The Mack plant sits in a battleground district that is home to one of Democrats’ top targets: freshman Mackenzie, who once joined the truck factory workers on the picket line.
Mackenzie has defended the tariffs, saying the president is taking steps to address decades of “unfair trade practices.” In a statement, the congressman said he was “disappointed” by Mack Trucks’ decision lay off workers “after several quarters of weakening growth” and “on the heels of last year’s decision to build new plants in Mexico.”
He met with union officials shortly after the layoffs were announced – and made no mention of tariffs in a subsequent social media post. “I share their concerns regarding the outsourcing of good-paying jobs,” he wrote.
Democrats – and some Trump-critical Republicans – have begun to protest every Monday outside Mackenzie’s office in Allentown, lining the street for an hour at noon and drawing a steady stream of honks from passing cars. One day in late April, their signs were mostly focused on government programs such as Medicaid and Social Security. But some Democrats predicted that Trump’s handling of the economy could put Mackenzie in his toughest spot yet.
“Right now, the single best thing he can do is fight Donald Trump and fight him on his tariffs,” said state Rep. Pete Schweyer (D) as he wandered down the line of protesters.
Shopping in nearby Macungie, retiree Margaret O’Brian worried about an economic downturn and said she was already struggling to afford food for her cats. She didn’t make it out to vote last fall but would have cast her ballot for Trump; now she and some of her Trump-voting friends aren’t thrilled with the results.
“It’s not working right now, let’s put it that way,” she said of the tariffs.
“I thought it was going to be real good,” she added.
