The president’s nonsensical tariff saga is unleashing economic chaos, hurting working people through canceled manufacturing projects, higher grocery prices and lost retirement savings. It is also pushing too many progressives to hop into bed with Wall Street and retreat to the old and disastrous corporate-centered way of thinking.
There is a third option: Embrace a trade policy that truly levels the playing field for workers.
Tariffs, when used with a clear and consistent strategy, are a necessary part of any economic policy that looks out for workers. But clear and consistent, Donald Trump’s tariffs are not. And his domestic economic agenda does next to nothing to help workers.
Growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, in the 1960s, I went to Johnny Appleseed Junior High with the sons and daughters of unionized workers making steel, cars, tires and appliances at the Westinghouse, General Motors, Mansfield Tire and Tappan Stove factories nearby. By the 1970s, executives had moved many of these plants south in search of lower wages. Unsatisfied, they then lobbied Congress to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement and permanently decrease tariff rates with China — again, in search of lower wages. Compliant politicians obliged.
The deals they struck helped hollow out the middle class and devastated entire communities. Workers saw whose opinions mattered to the “serious people” in Washington and on Wall Street. They rarely have a seat at the table and their interests are so often overlooked.
Mr. Trump rose to power by understanding many workers’ legitimate anger. He told workers that yes, the system is rigged against them — and on that, perhaps that alone, he was right. He knew that millions of working Americans wanted destruction.
But the destruction Trump voters asked for? Surely not higher prices on bananas or coffee that we can’t grow in the United States, or interruptions in supply chains with Canada.
Unfortunately, like so much with Mr. Trump, his actual policy doesn’t come close to living up to the promises he made.
Instead of ushering in a better economy where workers are the winners, he is pushing costs higher and hurting small businesses, creating uncertainty that will make manufacturers less likely to invest and create jobs here and inflicting more economic pain on the workers who put their faith in him — all while endorsing a budget that includes a massive tax cut for the wealthiest 5 percent. We have already seen companies cancel billions of dollars in planned factory construction. That will only get worse.
But it’s become clear there is a deeper damage Mr. Trump may do to workers: We’re seeing a troubling revival in the old, neoliberal Washington-Wall Street consensus on trade.
Too many Democrats are turning to the same corporate crowd that brought us NAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement and the aborted Trans-Pacific Partnership to argue against Mr. Trump’s tariff policy. One analyst on MSNBC recently approvingly quoted the Wall Street Journal editorial board to make her point. The last thing Democrats should be doing is elevating the same old, out-of-touch economists who led us astray. Following their guidance was an economic disaster for working people in places like Ohio and a political disaster for the Democratic Party.
There is still a need for — and a strong desire among workers for — a dramatic overhaul of the global trading system.
Lost in the discussion of these tariffs is the reason corporations outsource jobs and the reason they lobbied so hard for “free” trade deals in the first place: They want to pay lower wages and fewer benefits to their workers, and follow weaker environmental protections.
In the age of artificial intelligence, more American jobs will be at risk of falling victim to the insatiable corporate appetite for offshoring that cuts costs to fatten profits. For years now, companies have been sending data processing, call center and other customer service jobs to low-wage countries. One 2022 report concluded that “the greater a sector’s exposure to A.I., the more likely it is to offshore jobs to lower-income countries.” Soon, Americans working in areas like marketing, financial analysis and software development could see their jobs sent overseas.
Our trade policy should target the countries that are the biggest destinations for outsourcing and worker exploitation, like China, Mexico, India and Malaysia. A universal tariff, or tariffs on countries like Canada, aren’t tailored to the biggest risks to American jobs, but they do drive up prices for working people.
It should also come as no surprise that China, in addition to being a destination for outsourcing, also engages in unfair trade practices to artificially subsidize the cost of its products. We need tariffs on industries such as steel or solar panels, where China and other countries buttress their companies to kill their competition.
But you can’t have a fair, level playing field if it’s constantly changing. We can’t expect companies to make long-term investments in moving production to the U.S. if they have no idea what the policy will be from day to day. Nor can we expect companies to move entire global supply chains overnight without working Americans paying a massive price.
Politics isn’t really about left or right, it’s about who you fight for and what you fight against. American workers are desperate for someone who will be on their side, and who will make trade policy — and all economic policy — work for them, not multinational corporations. The president they put their faith in is making the economy worse. They’re still hungry for an alternative.
Sherrod Brown served as a Democratic U.S. senator from Ohio for 18 years and is the founder of the Dignity of Work Institute.
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