In a new special series published by
RealClearPolicy, PPI President Will Marshall squares off against Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, senior policy advisors to the Trump campaign, on trade policy in the next presidential administration.
“Donald Trump
calls the U.S. economy a ‘disaster’ and blames trade for sapping America’s industrial might,” Marshall writes. “Neither claim is true, but it’s hard to refute someone who offers no evidence or economic analysis to support his hyperbolic assertions. For that we must turn to his campaign’s economic advisers, Peter Navarro and Wilbur Ross. Unfortunately, their defense of what they grandly call the ‘Trump Trade Doctrine’ is rife with dubious logic and funny numbers.
“The ‘Trump Trade Doctrine’ is profoundly reactionary. It looks back nostalgically to the industrial order of the 1950s, promising to ‘bring back’ yesterday’s jobs. It takes no account of the central role economic innovation plays in accelerating productivity growth, which is the key to raising U.S. wages and living standards. And its adoption as national policy would be a calamity for the tens of millions of U.S. workers whose well-paying jobs — in manufacturing, services, and the digital economy — depend on open markets and trade.”
