President Trump’s Trade Policy

"What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war." ~ Henry George

"We shouldn't be putting tariffs on anything. That hurts working men and women in US. What we should be doing is making our manufacturing more competitive." ~ Rick Santorum

"Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don't know whom to blame for their calamity." ~ Walter E. Williams

President Trump's trade policy is fundamentally contradictory.

To explain his decisions, we need to look at trade from several aspects. It wasn't simply about protectionism or free trade. Instead, he sought to please two rather different segments, free-trade-supporting wealthy oligarch elites and anti-free-trade working-class Americans, who lost their employment due to the last 30 years of industrialization and manufacturing infrastructure in China and rest of Asia. Most wealthy American manufacturing oligarchs moved many of their factories to Asia in the past 40 years.

Trump's trade policy did not neatly fall into mainstream politics. Free trade has always been linked with right-wing economic ideology, while protectionism has been advocated for by both left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans.

American trade policy is not so much left or right.

National security and equitable trade also weigh in. There are people who are behind trade restrictions to protect workers' rights and the environment as many American politicians in both parties fought against the keystone oil pipeline from Alberta oil sands into America which was dismantled with the Biden administration, as well as just the economy.

The main issue of Trump is the effect of trade on America. He spoke of how the trade deals affected the workers, especially the manufacturing workers. His base is the white working-class individuals who yearned for trade policies as a solution to making their jobs come back to America and job security. They have no concern for the international economy but only for their own jobs.

At the same time, Trump is trying his best to keep the support of wealthy oligarchy leaders who gain from free trade. To do this, he talks a great deal of defending American workers but still kept trade relationships in place that serve large billion dollar tech businesses. This sent some confusing messages, such as pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) but re-opening NAFTA into the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which also kept much of the initial deal.

Clearly, Trump's trade policy varies on an ever-moving spectrum politically and economically, he tries to appeal to two opposed groups.

He's cutting taxes to the very rich and well educated.

At the same time he's trying to convince his voting base, the non-college-educated working class, promising them an incredible future by placing a tax on the American consumers which he calls tariffs from all countries. Trump's argument to his working class base: Tariffs will force companies and countries to magically transfer hundreds of billions of dollars worth of factories and manufacturing companies all back to America. Wishful thinking, but at least he got his voting base to believe it.

Nothing new here. A rich president cutting the taxes of their very rich and taxing the poor.

Though his intention at times was vague, he has the aim that his policies are to resonate with both working-class voters (tax/tariff them) and affluent oligarch elites (cut their taxes so they have more profits).