The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Eric the Green]

I approve of tariffs, but getting trade policy right is a difficult process, because we want to avoid trade wars. Trump wasn't able to accomplish much in protecting American business with his tariff policy. The problem is that companies shifted factories abroad to take advantage of cheap labor in order to reduce prices for American consumers. That caused much job loss and poverty for workers, especially in the Rust Belt where the working class shifted to Trump in 2016. Some shifted back to the Democrats in 2020 because his trade policy didn't bring many jobs back and because his neo-liberal, business-booster policies are not to their advantage, despite his trickle-down economics myth. Perhaps the worker-friendly Biden and Democratic congress can work to get trade policy right. Meanwhile companies have to reckon with rising wages in third world countries, and the costs of importing compared with manufacturing in the USA. So eventually the need for tariffs will abate.