U.S. Trade Policy Under Trump is a Mess. Here's Some Ideas to Fix It.
As Trump rolls out more tariffs, these progressive leaders have thoughts about how to improve trade policy in ways that support workers, farmers, consumers, and environmental protections.
President Donald Trump is announcing his next round of tariffs later today (April 2, 2025) in a speech from the White House Rose Garden. Though details are not yet released, Trump is expected to enact significant tariffs on all imported goods. Trump is branding today as “Liberation Day,” saying repeatedly that the tariffs are necessary because of years of “unfair” practices from importing countries.
Most mainstream media coverage (other than Fox News) has focused on tariffs as a “tax on consumers.” Prices will rise, according to most economists, and the broader economy could shrink due to rising inflation. Consumer confidence is dropping fast. Stock markets have declined dramatically since Trump took office, largely due to concerns about economic shockwaves from Trump’s trade war.
In today’s edition of The Cocklebur, we feature progressive voices that challenge both Trump’s disastrous trade approach and free-market economists’ insistence that all tariffs are bad. Contrary to the hive-mind “economists’ brain,” tariffs—when used on a case-by-case basis targeting certain imports—actually can be a tool that helps to support U.S. economic, labor, and environmental policy. Tariffs can be used to prevent cheap imports from countries that abuse workers, use highly polluting practices banned in the U.S., or cause deep job losses here at home. The goal of a different usage of tariffs could be to prevent the “race to the bottom” of environmental and labor laws that the U.S. has been experiencing since the free trade era took off like a rocket in the 1990s.
Former President Joe Biden deployed this strategy to some degree. Biden’s tariffs-plus-investment strategy led to significant “on-shoring,” with companies using incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build manufacturing facilities throughout the U.S. Dozens of factories for semiconductors, electric vehicles, high-tech batteries, solar panels, and more were the outcome of the Biden Administration’s dual approach.
The Biden successes on this front are now being ripped apart by Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), of course. Trump is forgetting about the investment part, choosing a saber-rattling trade war against all other countries instead. Trump is choosing to cancel contracts and agreements to pave the way for his multi-trillion dollar tax cut package that will primarily benefit large corporations and the handful of people who make more than $10 million per year. The Trump approach to trade is the worst possible combination of rising costs-of-goods for people and slashing potential domestic investment in jobs that grow the economy.
The fair trade approach would also protect the sovereignty of other poorer, countries as well. Mexico, for example, would be able to protect their very low-income farmers from cheaper U.S. corn imports. Cheap U.S. corn flooded Mexico after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during the 1990s and early 2000s. Hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods, causing a mass migration to the U.S. seeking work. Along with loss of good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs in the U.S. (mostly union jobs), this is one of the downsides of the free trade regime we’ve been living under ever since.
(NOTE—Trump clearly does not, and would not, agree with this analysis. He doesn’t respect other nations’ sovereignty. Instead, his trade wars are about dominance, aggressive and threatening language, and a flawed chest-thumping superiority complex. That’s not patriotism. That’s racism and imperialism.)
With that in mind, here are some article recommendations with quotes to help explain what a fair trade/better economy policy might look like. Enjoy the reading assignment.
The Trade Policy We Need—Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs are incoherent, but that should not discredit targeted tariffs paired with investment as a policy lever. By Lori Wallach, The American Prospect.
“Unless you spend time in factory towns, it is hard to understand how devastating and lasting the fallout from these trade policies has been. These are our fellow Americans, 63 percent of whom could not cover a $500 emergency expense, who have an eight-year shorter average lifespan than college-educated Americans, and whose deaths of despair—from suicide, alcoholism, drug overdoses—have since 2021 decreased overall U.S. life expectancy for the first time ever.
These are horrifying facts. But your econ professor’s voice echoing in your brain tells you that trade deficits are not a problem: Even if some people lose jobs, we all benefit from access to cheaper imported goods. Except that the guru of modern trade economics, Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, revealed in a 2004 paper that as higher-wage American jobs—from skilled machinists to union auto- and steelworkers to computer programmers to accountants—began to be offshored, American workers now lose more in wages than they gain from cheap imports.
As macroeconomic theory predicts, decades of large chronic global trade deficits have both deindustrialized America and fueled income inequality. Instead of productive investment in making goods in the real economy, we mainly produce dollar-denominated assets purchased with the billions of dollars foreigners earn by selling us imports. This has been extremely profitable for the financialized aspects of the U.S. economy and wealthy investors. It’s been a disaster for most Americans.”
Trump’s tariff policies set up farmers for bailouts and bankruptcy. By Anthony Pahnke, The Hill.
“Agricultural policy doesn’t have to operate this way. Tariffs particularly, when used along with a larger ensemble of tools such as targeted investments and antitrust enforcement, could make markets more profitable and competitive. But as tariffs are currently being deployed, farmers can expect four years of economic hardship.
Consider investments. Along with tariffs on foreign imports, say on fruits and vegetables from other countries, the government could dedicate resources to help producers enter the profession and take the place of aging farmers.
But rather than having such foresight when thinking about our nation’s food security, the USDA has canceled the Local Food for Schools Program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement, which together represent over $1 billion in funding to support local farmers sell to schools and food banks. Along with funding freezes for specific projects, including initiatives for planting organic crops and improving water lines on operations, farmers are having both their productive capacity and domestic markets taken from them.”
Tariff mayhem: A shortcut to higher prices, fewer jobs, and broken friendships. By Sophia Murphy, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
“The government could be harnessing one of tariffs’ predictable dynamic effects: increased domestic production and sales. This outcome is one that many U.S. farm organizations would support: tariffs in support of fair market prices and stronger local purchasing systems. Were the tariffs predictable, this strategy could use tariffs judiciously to protect a supply for consumers who want better working conditions in agriculture, stronger animal welfare rules, and far less environmental damage (all of which are huge problems in U.S. food systems).
Tragically, at the same time as the president has created so much turmoil for farmers with tariffs, his administration has slashed support to hugely successful if still emergent local food economies across the country. Last month, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins defended her decision to cut over $1 billion that had been appropriated for a nationwide program of support to resilient local food programs. She is reported to have said the program was “nonessential” and, absurdly, added the programs had been about “food justice for trans people in New York and San Francisco.” Her statement was offensive. It was also wrong. Hunter College reports that 35 states have passed or considered legislation to establish free school meals in the state for every school child in the past two years. The need and demand for access to more and better food is nationwide.
The emerging web of markets for local foods meets a series of public interest goals, including public health, education and rural economic revitalization. IATP will continue to protect and promote these resilient regional food systems. They model the kind of market relationships that we want to see in international trade too. We will continue to amplify public demand for investment in fair markets, healthy food and clean production, and to develop trade policy that raises the quality of what we grow, sell, buy and consume, whether at home or abroad.”
The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.