President Trump deserves applause for boosting the prospects for this county's forgotten manufacturing workers, notably in steel and aluminum. Democrats lately have neglected these Americans. Hillary Clinton barely campaigned among them in Michigan in fall 2016, and she thoroughly ignored them in Wisconsin.

Alas, Trump is doing this all wrong. He likely will hurt the very middle class that he has championed since his escalator ride onto the political stage.

Trump aims to protect U.S. metal makers with new taxes of 25 percent on foreign steel and 10 percent on overseas aluminum. "Tariffs" is just a jumped-up word for taxes on imports. Like other business taxes, these will trickle down through higher prices (average new cars: up an estimated $177; cars and appliances: up some 5 to 10 percent), lower wages, curbed output, and outsourcing.

These taxes will haunt metal-buying companies.

"This is a $347 million tax on America's brewers," Beer Institute CEO Jim McGreevy explained Monday on the Fox Business Network.

"We think the estimate for beer is about 20,000," he said, citing job losses tied to costlier aluminum cans. "That's brewers, brewery workers, waitresses, bartenders, truck drivers."

"Here's a simple, 'real-life' impact of the tariffs," a friend on the West Coast tells me. His metal-products company serves the aircraft and aerospace industries, among others. "In late January, we bid on a job, but didn't get the purchase order until the end of February. Now we are ordering the raw material to fabricate the parts, and the price increases have killed our profits."

Neel Khosa of AMSYSCO, an Illinois-based steel-wire maker, told Curbed.com: "The steel tariffs will shoot Trump's infrastructure plan in the foot, to some degree." These new taxes will make bridges, tunnels, and roads more expensive. A typical oil pipeline could cost $76 million more. Ironically, any steel in Trump's signature southern-border wall now likely will be pricier.

The Trade Partnership predicted Monday that these new taxes will create 33,464 metals-industry jobs. Too bad these taxes will "cost 179,334 jobs throughout the rest of the economy, for a net loss of nearly 146,000 jobs," including 28,313 fewer construction posts. "More than five jobs would be lost for every one gained."

The biggest fear is that foreign nations will retaliate by taxing U.S. exports. A trade war, like military combat, will generate casualties and collateral damage.