One of the less heralded political-economic transformations of the past decade has been the shift from a bipartisan consensus for free trade to a bipartisan consensus against it. This was not due to any change in economic thinking; professors continue to teach the logic of comparative advantage. Rather, it was mainly due to a political reaction against income inequality and deindustrialization in wealthy democracies combined with fears of Chinese weaponization of international dependence on Chinese production. The current presidential campaign is being portrayed in apocalyptic terms by both sides. Yet on the critical question of how the United States interacts with the global economy there is an identifiable bipartisan center that is likely to grow.
Donald Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs as president was criticized by Democrats and most economists, but many of those tariffs were kept under President Biden. Biden’s use of industrial policy to direct federal resources at helping certain US industries do better in international competition was itself a variant of the “economic nationalism” that Trump had advocated, but one that involved spending tax dollars rather than imposing costs on imports and thereby on consumers. The Biden administration’s recent imposition of 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, while symbolic — Chinese electric-vehicle sales in the US are negligible — continues the theme of imposing costs on imports.
In his campaign, Trump has doubled down on promising to implement tariffs, even saying that he would use them to replace some types of tax as government revenue. Such proposals have alarmed Republican officials as well as Democrats.
Kamala Harris’s position is difficult to locate. In public statements before becoming vice-president, she vigorously attacked what she called “Trump’s trade tax” which resulted in “American families spending as much as $1.4 billion more on everything from shampoo to washing machines” and “farmers in Iowa with soybeans rotting in bins, looking at bankruptcy.” At the same time, she stressed that she wanted trade deals to “protect American workers” and to address climate change. Her opposition on these grounds to NAFTA, USMCA (NAFTA’s replacement, negotiated under Trump) and the Obama-negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was, taken as a whole, unusual for a Democrat of generally mainstream views aspiring to national office.
Harris did not work directly on trade issues as vice-president. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is the only Biden-era international agreement that has embodied the types of environmental initiatives that Harris has praised. She supported it in Thailand in 2022. While it is unclear how much priority would be given to it under Harris, the reality is that multilateral trade talks are popular among American allies but not Americans. The leading examples are the Asian Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP, led by China); the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP); and the IPEF.
The CPTPP is a particularly egregious example, given that it was a US initiative until President Trump withdrew. (Hillary Clinton, in her campaign against Trump, distanced herself from the pact.) Democrats had perceived the political power of Trump’s economic nationalism and tacked in his direction. Ever since, there has been little domestic political support for re-engaging with the TPP. Yet the US-brokered past has lived on, its membership including such key US allies and trading partners as Japan (which picked up leadership when the US left), Australia, Canada and, in 2023, Britain.
Harris will at least be less likely than Biden to ignore or downplay such multilateral talks as those that are ongoing for the IPEF. But Harris needs working-class and union voters, who tend to distrust international trade, and she and Tim Walz have green commitments that are not easy to honor in trade deals. Harris is unlikely to declare new tariffs although she might continue existing ones, such as on EVs and their components. Her environmental and jobs priorities will find positive expression in continuing Biden’s industrial policies, with their strong green and strategic anti-China aspects.
Trump’s prioritization of tariffs is likely to be tempered in office. In addition, he does not have Harris’s environmentalist commitments and he was, after all, the last president to bring in a major trade deal, the USMCA.
Whoever is in the White House, that agreement will be due for a review in July 2026. Measured by the growth in US trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, the USMCA cannot be reckoned a great success. Yet the bipartisan consensus on trade and industrial policy suggests it will be celebrated anyway.