With Car Tariffs, Trump Puts His Unorthodox Trade Theory to the Test

President Trump and his supporters have clashed with mainstream economists for years about the merits of tariffs. Now, the world will get to see who is right, as the president’s sweeping levies on automobiles and auto parts play out in a real-time experiment on the global economy.

In Mr. Trump’s telling, tariffs have a straightforward effect: They encourage companies to move factories to the United States, creating more American jobs and prosperity.

But for many economists, the effect of tariffs is anything but simple. The tariffs are likely to encourage domestic car production over the long run, they say. But they will also cause substantial collateral damage that could backfire on the president’s goals for jobs, manufacturing and the economy at large.

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Mark DiPlacido, a policy adviser at American Compass who served in the Office of the United States Trade Representative in Mr. Trump’s first term, said he believed the tariffs would incentivize “a lot more investment in the American auto industry.”

“As the White House indicated, we’re at a point where 75 percent of the content of American vehicles are made abroad and imported here,” he said. “Reshoring more of that industry and investing in industry and workers is a welcome step.”

He acknowledged that there could be “disruptions and potentially short-term price increases” in the interim, but said that similar protections in the past had helped revive the auto industry.