Abstract

The Trump–Pence and Biden–Harris administrations enthusiastically embraced protectionism. Each administration explicitly argued for a break from the bipartisan consensus of recent decades that has been generally supportive of free trade and of allowing markets to shape US industrial and employment composition. But the protectionism of the Trump and Biden administrations has not succeeded and likely will not succeed at meeting its goals: they have caused manufacturing employment to decline, not to increase; they have not reduced the overall trade deficit; they have not led to a substantial decoupling of the US and Chinese economies. More fundamentally, the goals that have not been met are wrongheaded: policymakers should not pay inordinate attention to manufacturing employment, and the trade deficit is a poor guide to economic policy. Finally, these wrongheaded goals often rest on fundamental economic misperceptions: free trade is not a policy to create jobs; it is a policy to increase productivity, wages, and consumption. The balance of the evidence suggests that free trade, including trade with China, has not reduced employment. Of course, trade has been disruptive. But populist policies adopted in response will hurt workers, not help them.