Written by Scott McNutt
This is the second of two posts recapping sessions from the Spring 2025 Supply Chain Forum, held from April 8–10 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Read our other about onboarding young professionals. Attendees can view full recordings of all the Main Sessions at the forum in the Resources tile of the GSCI app.
Note: This session report has been restructured, edited and condensed for clarity and continuity.
With GSCI co-executive director and supply chain guru Thomas Goldsby moderating, the much-anticipated Supply Chain Forum session on the U.S. economy and its effect on global supply chains featured Marianne Wanamaker, dean of UT’s Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs.
A regarded authority on economic policy, labor markets, workforce development and American economic history, Wanamaker served as the chief domestic economist and senior labor economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the first Trump administration. She provided a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into economic policymaking at the highest levels of U.S. government.
What Problems Are Tariffs Solving?
The day before the session, amid major market turmoil, President Trump announced a 90-day pause of the steep reciprocal tariffs he imposed on April 2 on virtually all U.S. trading partners. Goldsby began by inviting Wanamaker’s comments while reminding the audience that Trump introduced tariffs in 2018 – which were never lifted – on several items including steel and aluminum, based on the Trade Expansion Act of 1962’s Section 232, which grants U.S. presidents the authority to adjust imports of goods if they threaten national security.
Wanamaker prefaced her remarks by emphasizing that, while politics are inherently intertwined in U.S. economic policy, she was presenting solely economic assessments and opinions. She began by saying the Constitution vests Congress, not the president, with the power to tax and set trade policy. Unfortunately, when it ceded trade policy power to the president in 1962, Congress failed to define what constitutes a national economic emergency. So, Wanamaker said, the emergency is whatever the president declares it to be.
“It’s not like we didn’t think this through as a country,” she continued. “We want a deliberative body to set the rules. We don’t make trade policy by tweets. Then we changed our minds. We lulled ourselves into it in an era of peace and prosperity in the middle of the last century.”
According to Wanamaker, the ongoing tariff drama is causing significant damage to the U.S. economy. “What is the emergency that we’re doing that damage for?” she said. “At what point do we produce enough washing machines that we no longer have to tariff washing machines from another country? I have no idea. No one else does either because we never said what that would look like.”
First-World Economic Growth
Wanamaker presented a line graph representing the GDPs of G7 countries plus Mexico since 2005. It showed the U.S. was in the mix with the others until 2014-2015, when it began outperforming the rest.
“You can see the effect of the pandemic, then you can see everybody recover, and the U.S. has owned the post-pandemic period,” Wanamaker observed, adding that countries with stricter rules about hiring and firing labor struggled to adapt to rapidly changing markets during and after Covid.
“Coming out of the pandemic, when everybody needed to reshuffle, there was this great churn in the American labor market,” she said.
Wanamaker called that churn an advantageous dynamism and adaptability that other G7 nations lack. Another element of those countries’ economic struggles and the U.S.’s dominance relates to birth rates and demographics: peer nations have rapidly aging populations and low birth rates, whereas the U.S. fares slightly better in these areas.
“We’re not growing enough to replace ourselves, but we’re still ahead in all of those things,” Wanamaker said.
Tariffs to Reshore Industry
An audience member asked whether Trump is using tariffs as a bargaining chip with other countries or whether he truly believes tariffs will bring industries back to the United States. Based on her experience, Wanamaker believes it is the latter.
Goldsby commented, “I would love for that to happen, but the feasibility is another question. It seems like the globalization toothpaste is out of the tube. The fundamental economics have not changed.” He cited as an example a typical TV that currently costs $300 in the U.S. To assemble it here would increase the price enormously. In labor alone, the cost would go from $4.50 an hour to $28.64 per hour.
As another barrier to onshoring, Wanamaker brought up the production possibilities concept: With a fixed amount of capital, labor and technology in an economy, a country can only produce a certain amount of goods. The U.S. is on the production possibilities frontier, meaning it cannot produce more of one product without producing less of another.
“The participation rate—that is the share—of the population that is working or looking for work among 25 to 54-year-olds in this country is near its historic peak,” she said. “There aren’t humans out there to put to work. That means if manufacturing came on shore, most of it is automated.”
Immigration, Labor, the Economy and the National Debt
Wanamaker addressed the economic implications of shutting off immigration, reiterating that her observations were purely economic. She noted that fewer immigrants means fewer workers.
“That’s just the reality of it,” she said. “Last year, 85 percent of new workers in this country were immigrants. The way you get more manufacturing and fewer immigrants is either to get manufacturing that requires no workers or reallocate some other sector of the economy towards manufacturing.”
In response to an audience question about the national debt, Wanamaker suggested that one way to lower it would be to overhaul the nation’s immigration policy. She explained that the policy is built on outdated assumptions and currently largely revolves around which industries have the most persuasive lobbyists advocating for an “immigration lane” into the country for their respective sectors, with lanes established for agriculture, the hospitality industry, and the supermodel industry. Even Dollywood has a lane. Additionally, of the immigrants coming into the U.S. this year, 15 percent will enter based on their skills and abilities, and the other 85 percent will enter based on their family relationships. This, she said, is crying out for an overhaul.
To improve economic growth and address the national debt through immigration, Wanamaker suggested adopting a point system, similar to those used by other countries, based on immigrants’ job qualifications. Bring in workers for industries that need them who pay into Social Security and Medicare but do not receive benefits unless they become citizens.
“That is one way of solving our entitlements problem,” Wanamaker said. “Immigration is a tool that other countries don’t have. There are not 8 million people trying to get into China. They are rapidly aging and trying to figure out what to do. This is a tool that’s not in their toolkit. It’s also not in the toolkit of most of Europe. Our unwillingness to use it is astounding to me.”
Tariffs Vs. Free Trade
Wanamaker said tariffs can be used to protect certain industries where the U.S. is uncompetitive but still wants them onshore. She noted that some countries have implemented serious protectionist measures, which have reduced their ability to grow as quickly as the United States.
“Economists believe, over the long run, that lower trade barriers allow a country to grow more like the U.S. than the G7s,” she said. “Why? Because when engaging in free trade, you specialize in what you’re good at, other countries specialize in what they’re good at, and you trade back and forth. When you close that system, you remove options for trade, and you as a country must now produce things that you’re less good at and try to sell those to the market.”
Entering the second Trump administration, the U.S. had the lowest trade barriers among industrial nations. Now, it has the highest. “That,” Wanamaker said, “is not a recipe for long-term success.”
Save the date
The Spring Supply Chain Forum will be held November 4–6, 2025, at the Marriott Knoxville Downtown, and you won’t want to miss it. The event is exclusive to the over 80 organizations that partner with UT to learn, network, and recruit the best supply chain talent.
Learn more about recruiting the best SCM students in North America.
If your company is not an SCF partner, contact us to speak with a team member about either of our two corporate partnership options.
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