Some liberals have wanted tariffs and the end of NAFTA for decades. Will they accept restrictions with Trump’s name on them?

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), two longtime opponents of NAFTA. Source: Vox

The Trump trade war has been simmering in news headlines over the past few months. Earlier threats and pullbacks have been replaced by announcements of real tariffs, tentative deals, and appraisals of the potential political fallout for the Trump administration. Earlier this summer, Trump tariffs on China were matched by Chinese tariffs on American soybeans. Ed Kilgore of New York Magazine noted that these tariffs, unlike any earlier event of the trade war, were causing headaches for pro-Trump Republicans in Iowa. He wrote that tariffs on soybeans, plus the harvest coinciding with election time, could result in far-reaching electoral effects, writing, “Add in the outsize attention Iowa will get (because it always does) as the launching point for the 2020 presidential contest, and it’s clear a big stumble there by Republicans in November would be damaging, especially if Trump’s trade war gets the blame.”

The eventual resolution of these trade conflicts is uncertain, even with Trump’s announcement that one trade war, that with Mexico, is finished. China is many times more powerful and less connected culturally and politically with the United States than Mexico. Success with Mexico means nothing for the tariff tit-for-tat with China. Barry Eichengreen of the Guardian summed up the view of the United States backing down in this way: “For those who observe that the economic and financial fallout from Trump’s trade war has been surprisingly small, the best response is: just wait.”

Most liberal writers seem to view Trump’s policies as mere bluster, a part of his earlier strategy of paying lip service to his heterodox political views so he can spend his political capital supporting traditional Republican policies. The trade war seems like a relic of Trump’s campaign, along with universal health care and the famed infrastructure bill. Like the rest of the “populist” Trump initiatives, the trade war is viewed as a flippant proposal to win votes that will eventually be stymied and shredded by Paul Ryan in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Trump’s only significant trade deal, that with Mexico, still has to be ratified by a Congress full of Republicans skeptical about doing much of anything before the midterm elections. But Trump’s views on trade have another consequence beyond the economic and geopolitical results of tariffs: they are realigning American norms about trade, an example of the effects of the partisan hatred of Trump on the political landscape.

Criticism of free trade had been a hallmark of liberal activism at least since the 1990s. Millions of liberals voted in the two presidential campaigns of Ross Perot, a candidate who ran almost solely against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). One of the largest demonstrations of the 1990s occurred at the World Trade Organization’s 1999 meeting in Seattle. At the protest, thousands of leftists and anarchists burned cars and rioted against the amount of power the WTO gave transnational corporations. The anger was not confined to the streets or the ballot box. Leading voices on the left advocated for protectionist policies. Talk radio host Thom Hartmann quoted a long stretch of Alexander Hamilton’s seminal argument for protectionism in his 2010 book Rebooting the American Dream. Prominent progressives like Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Bernie Sanders of Vermont railed against free trade on the floor of the House throughout the decade.

Opposing the global power of corporations has been only one of many liberal arguments against free trade. Free trade endorses awful working conditions in developing countries and depresses wages throughout the developed world. It slows wage growth and diminishes the ability of workers to negotiate for better benefits and work conditions. By decimating manufacturing in major cities, free trade typified by the WTO and NAFTA also harms the communities of color that Democrats rely upon as their base. As a result, the shift away from the neoliberal trade policies of Barack Obama was in full force long before the end of his presidency. By the end of the 2016 primary, Hillary Clinton had joined both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in opposition to Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump backed out of less than a week after his inauguration.

But any hope of liberal action on trade will have to wait years. Any policy proposals that invoke tariffs will be tainted by the Trump trade war. Even politically advantageous trade proposals will be ignored by Democratic politicians fearful of their base, a group that (rightfully) balks whenever a Democrat appears to be too chummy with the president. Democrats will be in the same situation as Republicans have been on health care over the past decade. Any positive change in the health care system sounds too much like an extension of Obamacare, and voting yes would mean an immediate primary challenge for any Republican politician. Just like Republican health care, Democratic free trade policy will become a dead letter in Democratic politics for years to come.