President Trump says he will now seek a 50% tariff on imported steel, up from 25% currently. He describes this policy as “a fence” that foreign steel producers “won’t be able to jump over.”

Trump’s heart may be in the right place to save steel jobs, but as we’ve pointed out repeatedly on these pages, steel tariffs are a net loser on jobs.

We learned this in Trump’s first term when Federal Reserve Board economists found that these metal tariffs were

“associated with a relative reduction in manufacturing employment of 2.7 percent, with the positive contribution from the import protection effects of tariffs (0.4 percent) more than offset by the negative effects associated with rising input costs (-2.0 percent) and retaliatory tariffs (-1.1 percent).”

The industries that were most disrupted by the tariffs were transportation, manufacturing and construction.

Mr. President, don’t go there again. A better idea is the 15% made in America corporate tax.