The Democratic Presidential Hopefuls are Failing Us on Trade

One of the few hopeful, “glass-half-full” thoughts I had after Donald Trump won the election in 2016 was that the new president would prove to be the best salesman of free trade since Adam Smith. No, I wasn’t so deluded to think he’d articulate the case for free trade and commit himself to removing all protectionis t barriers. On the contrary, I assumed Trump’s reckless deployment of tariffs and other trade restrictions would backfire so spectacularly and expose the folly of protectionism so convincingly that the economically discredited philosophy would become politically radioactive, once and for all.Well, the absence of any coherent, fresh ideas from the Democratic presidential aspirants that would differentiate their trade policies from President Trump ’s suggests that maybe things haven’t played out as I had expected they would. Not yet, anyway.The cost of Trump ’s trade wars (the effects of tariffs on nearly $300 billion of imports and retaliation against nearly $200 billion of exports) has started to register on the Geiger counter, but we’re nowhere near Chernobyl levels yet. The economic pain has been concentrated in a few sectors and regions, and du lled by subsidies, fiscal stimulus, and (as of tomorrow, presumably) monetary stimulus. Of course, as this sugar high wears off and the economy slows, conditions are likely to worsen.Will the Democrats be prepared to capitalize when this happens? Will any of the party ’s presidential aspirants call out...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs