Midterm voters rejected Trump’s disastrous trade wars. Here’s what Democrats should do next.
This piece is adapted from Ed Gresser’s PPI report: End of an Error: The Future of Trade Policy After the Midterms.
In the Biblical Book of Daniel, the mysterious writing on the wall conveys an ominous message to Babylon’s unlucky King Belshazzar:
“God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; your kingdom is divided and given to [others].”
The public’s message to Mr. Trump in this week’s election was just about as blunt — especially with respect to the trade wars he made his signature economic policy. Two years into the country’s first general tariff increase since Herbert Hoover, family budgets are stressed, workers’ real wages are down, farm and factory competitiveness have eroded, and America’s worldwide power and reputation are diminished. The “reindustrialization” and “new golden age” he promised as compensation are nowhere in sight. Having weighed his policies and found them wanting, voters have given much of his power to others (namely, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer).
The new Congress taking office in January can respond to the voters’ central hope — a more affordable life for families, lower costs for farmers and manufacturers — by ending his tariff experiment and laying the foundation for something better under the next president.
Closing down the tariff experiment would be relatively easy, at least in principle. Mr. Trump and his team imposed it through a mix of anti-Constitutional decrees at home and economic coercion abroad, rather than through legitimate and durable law. That means their tariff wall is legally flimsy and their arrangements with foreign governments are ephemeral. The incoming Congress can push to scrap it without regret. Doing so would help remove some inflationary pressure on the U.S. economy and begin rebuilding relationships with America’s neighbors and allies. Should Trump retain enough rump Republican support to sustain a veto, the next president can vaporize his tariff regime with the stroke of a pen on day one.
The more difficult challenge is to find the right replacement. That is a longer-term project, entailing intellectual debate and consensus-building at home, skeptical reassessment of the past decade’s experiments in leftish “post-neoliberalism” and far-right “national conservatism,” and consultation with America’s friends abroad. But the new Congress can begin laying a foundation for the next president. Its three goals should be to:
