In an era where unfair trade practices have gutted American manufacturing, it's high time we apply the same tough-love approach to services. Since President Trump took office, we have seen enormous success due to his leveraging tariffs against other nations. However, these do not extend to jobs that serve US customers, which have been outsourced to other countries. It is time to start. The truth is, there is a flood of invisible imports coming into our economy in the form of outsourced services and remote work. Countries like India and the Philippines shouldn't get a free pass to siphon American jobs via phone lines and internet cables. They must pay for providing services remotely to the US, just as they do for shipping cheap widgets. Tariffs on these "imported" services would discourage outsourcing and generate revenue to rebuild our workforce. It's America First economics at its core, putting our people back to work and making foreign exploiters foot the bill.
Take the quintessential example: phone center outsourcing. What was once a staple of American employment, steady jobs in call centers handling customer service for banks, airlines, and retailers, has been shipped overseas en masse. Since the early 2000s, hundreds of thousands of these positions have vanished from US soil. Forrester Research estimates that 400,000 service jobs, including many in call centers, have been lost to offshoring since 2000 alone.
India boasts over 1.1 million call center workers, while the Philippines employs 1.3 million in the industry, surpassing India as the global hub.
These numbers represent American livelihoods exported for pennies on the dollar. In the US, customer service and contact center jobs have declined by 500,000 in the last four years, primarily due to outsourcing and layoffs.
Meanwhile, the global call center market ballooned to $340 billion in 2020 and is projected to hit $496 billion by 2027, with much of that growth fueled by American companies ditching domestic workers.
These jobs aren't rocket science; they're roles hardworking Americans can and should fill. Answering customer queries, troubleshooting tech issues, or processing claims requires basic skills that our workforce possesses in abundance. Yet, corporations chase lower wages abroad. If they want to do that, they should have to pay for it. That is America First.
Since 2001, the U.S. has seen around 300,000 jobs outsourced annually, contributing to a broader loss of 3.82 million positions due to trade deficits, particularly with countries like China—but the service sector bleeds just as real.
The long-term harm is devastating, eroding the fabric of American communities and preventing our young workers from starting in jobs that traditionally trained them as they built up their careers. Outsourced workers often face immediate unemployment, forcing them into lower-paying gigs or endless retraining in other fields. Studies show that offshoring leads to persistent wage losses—up to 5% in the long run for affected employees—and higher job instability.
As skills atrophy and industries hollow out, entire regions suffer: factories close, but so do the service hubs that supported them. This is not sustainable for a country in the long term, and American companies should be incentivized to reinvest in the American economy.
This outsourcing has shattered the social contract between employees and their companies. Where families used to find stability, they now see that they are replaceable by anyone in India who will take pennies on the dollar, even if the work is not as good. This then spirals back on the economy as a whole, as sudden unemployment strains existing welfare systems, families struggle, and people lose a sense of pride in their work. Moreover, dependence on foreign call centers poses risks: cultural mismatches frustrate customers, data security vulnerabilities threaten privacy, and geopolitical tensions could disrupt operations overnight. Every adult has been on a phone line that they wish were manned by someone that’s an American and can help them. Instead, we are met with people across the globe who can’t help, don’t help, and don’t want to help.
Tariffs on the value of the imported work will help drastically. They would create an incentive to re-shore jobs and generate revenue if companies decide to keep them outsourced. Just as President Trump's tariffs on goods forced companies to rethink supply chains, a similar levy on remote services, say, 35% on imported labor costs, would make outsourcing less attractive.
Critics whined since the start of Trump’s tariff initiative about higher costs, but recent history proves tariffs work without tanking the economy. They spur innovation, like automation that creates higher-skilled jobs here. And they help us protect the most important thing we have: American families. This is America First thinking: self-reliance, family stability, and rejecting globalist schemes prioritizing profits over people. We've tariffed steel and cars to save industries; now, let's tariff pixels and phone calls to help middle America and bring our country back. Bring those jobs home or make foreigners pay dearly. American workers deserve no less.
