The US presidential campaign trail, and particularly the primaries, frequently witness a lot of ripe nonsense about trade and globalisation. Lectern-pounding candidates rail against the assault on manufacturing from unfair Chinese competition, and promise to bring jobs back home.
This time, the rhetoric has risen to the rafters, particularly on the Republican side. Donald Trump, confirming his positioning as a populist economist nationalist rather than a conservative or libertarian, has threatened the most hostile trade measures for decades, including heavy tariffs on imports from China and Mexico.
On a somewhat less dramatic scale in the Democratic primaries, the leftwing candidate Bernie Sanders has inveighed against trade deals, forcing Hillary Clinton to disavow the very Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement she spent years helping to negotiate as secretary of state.
In practice, much protectionist rhetoric in US elections is soon forgotten in office. Barack Obama’s promise during the 2008 election to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement was quietly dropped after he entered the White House.
But there is always the possibility that Mr Trump means what he says. That could spell trouble. No matter which party holds the White House and Capitol Hill, the general pattern is that the president is the adult in favour of liberal trade and against self-destructive tariffs, while Congress is the adolescent throwing protectionist tantrums. It would be a brave speaker of the House or leader of the Senate who spoke up in favour of free trade against an isolationist White House.
That said, results in the primaries suggest protectionist sentiment among the American public is not clear cut. True, Mr Sanders won a surprise victory, and Mr Trump another convincing one, in rust-belt Michigan. Many attributed Mr Sanders’ success to his assaults on globalisation and trade deals, portraying himself as the champion of blue-collar workers against Mrs Clinton’s Wall Street centrism.
Yet in neighbouring Ohio, beset by many of the same issues, Mrs Clinton won a comfortable victory and Mr Trump was defeated by the state’s sitting governor, John Kasich, whose views on trade are relatively moderate. Pew surveys of public opinion show that trade ranks low on the list of issues that the US public considers important, even below criminal justice reform and gun policy. And most Americans think that international trade benefits the economy, although they are more sceptical about formal trade agreements.
In truth, the dislike of trade deals is only one manifestation of a wider anger about economic vulnerability and stalling living standards. Globalisation has certainly threatened some jobs. But reversing previous trade agreements will not bring back manufacturing jobs to the US. Making them the centre of economic debate is misleading.
It would be more constructive to address economic insecurity directly, with policies aimed at supporting and reskilling those made unemployed for whatever reason and putting them back to work. The US does have one such programme, Trade Adjustment Assistance, but it is ill-targeted and has arbitrary qualification criteria.
Mr Trump’s protectionist rhetoric is the most extreme US elections have witnessed in living memory. Politicians must address fears of trade and globalisation.
But such initiatives are more likely to work if they involve practical help for the affected rather than boilerplate lectures that free trade benefits the US as a whole, with those affected bearing burdens for the greater good.
