Donald Trump Cannot Deliver the Change U.S. Trade Policy Needs
The era of unrestrained free trade is over, and it’s not coming back. It’s not what the modern, interconnected world demands. Instead, a new era of trade policy is needed—one designed to bring prosperity to working people, address inequality between and within countries, create high-quality jobs, and promote resilient and sustainable supply chains. The Biden-Harris administration has started to make this transition—and with important results to show for it. Donald Trump, on the other hand, offers a return to his failed trade policies, although this time with even more chaos and disruption.
The last several decades of deregulation, corporate tax cuts, and unfettered liberalized trade turned out to be like an addictive drug, with the highs of GDP gains and a growing stock market obscuring the slow but steady decline of middle- and working-class communities. The era may have benefited global companies and the wealthy, and it helped to lower extreme poverty in a handful of countries. But too often, this came at the expense of the environment and workers elsewhere, as the “race-to-the-bottom” approach that defined the era reduced wages and disincentivized companies from protecting the environment or decarbonizing their production.
Eventually, the damage proved too much to ignore. The so-called “China Shock” characterized by a range of predatory Chinese exports cost the United States over 1 million manufacturing jobs. Regions with high concentrations of industrial workers fared the worst. In these communities, poverty rates increased, fertility rates declined, and social and political norms were upended. While some may blame this on trade itself, it is important to remember that these impacts were not the result of the innate human desire to exchange goods and services but rather of poor trade policy. The policy was based on the flawed assumption that government intervention in the economy was inherently negative and that free trade was always preferable to the alternative.
It doesn’t need to be this way, but better trade outcomes require better policies. And Trump has proven that he is incapable of delivering this sort of change. Why? Because his view of trade policy is extractive in nature. His outlook is fundamentally about demonstrating power—seemingly, his own personal power. His obsession with tariffs is not about creating better outcomes for working people, the environment, or the climate. Instead, he appears to view tariffs as a way to compel others—adversaries and allies alike—to grovel before him, offering concessions in exchange for lifting tariffs.
That may sound fine to some, but this strong-man approach to trade ruins opportunities to collaborate with international partners to address century-defining challenges like climate change, inequality, migration, and others—all of which require global solutions. Trump’s presidency consistently demonstrated why this approach failed. When faced with his impulsive tariff threats, other countries simply made promises they had no intention of keeping, as China did in its “Phase One” trade deal with Trump. In fact, a recent Peterson Institute study found China didn’t buy any of the $200 billion of U.S. exports it had promised. World leaders learned quickly that Trump was governed by headline chasing, which meant they could give him the headline he wanted and win all the details. And in trade policy, details matter—a lot.
Despite his continued promises, his tariffs and corporate tax cuts didn’t reorient global supply chains. The total number of manufacturing jobs was lower when he left office than when he began his term. The trade deficit exploded, and industries like semiconductors continued to lose market share to China. Now, he seems to think that with bigger tariffs and even more corporate tax cuts, the result would somehow be different.
Americans know that trade policy isn’t about asserting dominance or extracting concessions. And it’s certainly not about the personal power of any one person. Rather, it should be about leveraging global commerce in a way that makes our world more sustainable, our environment cleaner, and our workers more prosperous.
Trade policy, including strategic tariffs, can be (and should be) a force that creates and sustains high-quality jobs. It should align closely with other government tools—including regulation and procurement, as well as research and development—to form a holistic strategy for expanding the middle class and strengthening workers and their communities. It has not always been this way, but it can be—and that’s why leadership matters. That’s why values matter.
The Biden-Harris administration has demonstrated that with the right mix of values and pragmaticism, a trade policy that puts working people and the middle class at the center can deliver real results. The administration’s transformational investments in future-forward industries, its expansion of “Buy American” provisions, use of export controls and targeted tariffs, and its commitment to both invent and domestically produce the next great technologies of the future have resulted in nearly a trillion dollars of private sector investment into U.S. manufacturing, and the creation of roughly 800,000 new manufacturing jobs. It has also caused the trade deficit with China to reach its lowest level in years.
As a nation, we can build on these gains by modernizing U.S. trade policy based on three reinforcing principles. First, ambitious standards related to workers’ rights, climate action, and respect for the rule of law should be required to receive the United States’ best trade terms. Second, tariff rates should be increasingly based on firm-level decisions, allowing individual exporters to receive better rates based on how well they treat their workers, recognize the collective bargaining rights of their employees, protect the environment, and decarbonize their production. Third, trade policy should closely align with a national investment strategy, ideally coordinated with like-minded partners, to ensure domestic manufacturers—and their workers—remain at the forefront of the industries that will define our future.
This sort of strategy requires thoughtful and knowledgeable leadership on trade issues. It also requires that trade policy not be used for personal gain but as a lever in the service of our values and in coordination with America’s partners and allies.
Ryan Mulholland is a senior fellow for International Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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