The tariff debate has tended to live in the realm of abstraction for people in the Acela Corridor. But for those of us desperately fighting to preserve generational American manufacturing businesses, the effects are anything but theoretical.

My family has been in the tool-making business in West Virginia for more than 170 years. But the underlying market forces in my case are not all that different from those affecting pharmaceuticals or automotives: Years of escalating and outrageous labor practices, anticompetitive foreign government subsidies and inconsistent trade regimes have made it almost impossible for American-made goods to compete with imported products, even in U.S. retail environments.

But in the six weeks following President Trump’s first announcement of reciprocal tariffs, our company saw a 15 percent increase in revenue and a 26 percent jump in orders compared to the six weeks before. Our online traffic saw modest positive movement, but the........

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