Whirlpool Is a Poster Child for Tariffs– and Not in a Good Way

Whirlpool Corp.’s website proudly states, “Started in America. Stayed in America.” The self-styled “America’s Home Appliance Company” has used this kind of patriotic framing to justify its decades-old campaign for government protection from foreign competition – protection Whirlpool has repeatedly won. The company has thus become a protectionist poster child among tariff fans in both government and the private sector.

Recent events have proven the cheerleaders right – though almost certainly not for reasons they’ll admit.

Citing “recession-level industry decline,” Whirlpool just slashed its full-year earnings guidance almost in half, suspended its dividend, suffered a 20% drop in its share price in a single session, and laid off hundreds of American workers while, the machinists union points out, simultaneously building new factories in Mexico. Company officials and various analysts place the blame in no small part on the very tariff regime that Whirlpool has doggedly supported.

It would be difficult to construct a clearer cautionary tale of how US protectionism can harm not only American consumers but even its intended beneficiaries.

Whirlpool has been one of the nation’s most vocal proponents of US protectionism since at least 2011. That year, the company requested antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/​CVDs) on imported refrigerator-freezers and washing machines from South Korea and Mexico, resulting in significant new duties on the latter products. When foreign production of washing machines moved to avoid the duties, Whirlpool asked Uncle Sam to target imports from those countries too, eventually winning from the Trump administration “safeguards” on washers from every country except Canada.

In the years that followed, Whirlpool was involved in essentially every available legal channel for import protection – more than a dozen interventions under six different laws – and was often successful. Its Ohio facilities also have been the backdrop for two separate Trump administration events touting the President’s “America First” trade policies.

Beneath the surface, however, lie the mounting costs of Whirlpool’s advocacy. For starters, research shows that that the washing machine tariffs increased prices for both those units and complementary dryers, costing American consumers more than $800,000 per job created in domestic industry. Moreover, according to a 2023 US International Trade Commission report, the industry’s gains came from LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics’ new US facilities, while Whirlpool’s fortunes continued to decline.

Meanwhile, Trump’s other tariffs have become a major headwind for Whirlpool, which has quietly (and in classic fashion) lobbied for them to be applied to its competitors’ products but against them for imports of the parts and materials its US factories need.

Section 232 “national security” tariffs on steel and aluminum have hit the company particularly hard, fueling its $82 million first-quarter loss. Steel makes up around half of washers’ content, rendering US producers of these and other large appliances highly exposed to the high prices that Trump’s 50% tariffs have created.

“Emergency” tariffs on other appliance parts have added to Whirlpool’s costs. The Supreme Court invalidated those taxes in February, but the administration’s replacement levies will cause similar pain. All told, the company estimates it paid more than $300 million in US tariffs last year and will pay hundreds of millions more in 2026, further compressing its profit margins even with multiple price increases. It’s a classic case of the “protected industry trap,” where tariff-related cost increases hit margins immediately, while market-share gains take years to materialize (if they happen at all). And JPMorgan analysts agree, noting in May that Whirlpool’s “lower earnings outlook was driven by higher raw material inflation, a larger net tariff impact, and weaker price and product mix benefits.”

New Trump tariffs have also hurt the company in other ways. In its October earnings call, officials complained that competitors LG and Samsung had flooded the US market in anticipation of tariffs, forcing Whirlpool to offer deep discounts to maintain market share. More recently, they’ve suggested that refunds of Trump’s now-invalidated emergency tariffs – which Whirlpool is also seeking, of course, – have disproportionately benefited foreign appliance producers, allowing them to offer additional discounts that Whirlpool couldn’t match. Tariff-related uncertainty and the Iran war have added to its difficulties. The share price has unsurprisingly cratered.

Despite it all, Whirlpool continues to call for greater protection and to champion the Trump tariff regime. The company in April hosted US Trade Representative Jameson Greer so he could celebrate the president’s use of tariffs to “accelerate America’s reindustrialization” – six years after Trump promised the same thing at the same place. In May, Whirlpool’s CEO celebrated Section 232 tariff increases on steel “derivative” products, including appliances, and assured investors that these levies mean that, finally, “Whirlpool Corporation is structurally positioned to win with our American-made products.”

If millions of dollars in losses and a collapsing share price is tariff victory, I’d hate to see what defeat looks like.

Whirlpool’s enduring weakness is a case study in protectionist failure, not success. Firms that lobby the hardest for protection are often the least capable of competing on quality and price, and tariffs perversely insulate them from the market’s relentless pressure to improve. Windfall profits – generated at consumers’ significant expense – are frequently squandered, while competitiveness still erodes. Protectionist advocacy also often spirals in unintended ways – via trade diversion, tariffed inputs, investment uncertainty, and more – putting protected firms at an even bigger disadvantage. And too often the companies’ response is to request even more protection.

What emerges in the end is not a larger and more productive economy, but a corporate race-to-the-bottom over who can secure the most favorable treatment from Washington. Market competition works differently. It pushes firms to innovate, cut costs, and deliver better products at prices consumers can afford. It’s a reality that, unfortunately for Whirlpool and America’s protectionists, no amount of presidential photo ops can change.