Global trade has been a net positive to not only Americans, but to human prosperity in general. The more freely goods and services are able to transcend the political limits of borders, the better. Alas, President Trump’s protectionist inclinations have taken American trade policy in the wrong direction. Now, former Vice President Joe Biden is trying his hand at limited but consequential protectionism.
Trump, for his part, who has declared himself a “tariff man,” has long lamented global trade agreements, which he sees as harmful to the United States.
“When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so,” he said on Twitter.
The president’s zero sum thinking on trade has led him to impose taxes on the American people through tariffs invoked on dubious national security grounds, which have done more harm than good to the American economy.
According to the Tax Foundation, the president’s tariffs have had negative impacts across the board, with estimated long-term impacts on GDP, wages and the loss of 179,800 full-time jobs.
The only good news is that the president’s tariffs are limited in scope — but that in turn is only because he opted to pursue tariffs without congressional approval.
Biden has rightly criticized the president’s trade policies.
“America’s farmers have been crushed by his tariff war with China,” he said. “He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any beginning econ student at Iowa or Iowa State could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.”
But Biden’s recently released economic plans include the usual rhetoric of protectionists with demands for “fair trade,” complaints about “offshoring,” a defense of the antiquated Jones Act, which undercuts shipping competition, and a plan to strengthen “Buy American” rules that advantage American companies seeking federal contracts.
As Scott Lincicome notes, Buy American rules have often been “just plain incompatible with the realities of multinational investment and 21st century global supply chains.”
As David Harsanyi wrote for National Review, the idea “offers the familiar feel-good populism of promises to crack down on outsourcing and ‘bring back’ millions of American manufacturing jobs.”
Indeed it should be popular: It’s the same sort of appeal used by Donald Trump in his first presidential campaign.
But what might help Biden get votes in the Rust Belt critical to the president’s electoral prospects is ultimately flawed and antiquated policymaking.
We continue to encourage policymakers to stick up for free trade and resist the populist impulse to revert to economic protectionism.
