This is the first of three weekly series on the Democrats and the 2020 election that I will be running between now and the end of the year. “Realos and Fundis” will focus on issues other than the welfare state; “The Welfare State in 2020” will address the various Democratic proposals to expand the welfare state; and “Mind the Gap in 2020” will talk about the profound fissures in American politics and how the Democratic Party can try to heal them.
Free trade, on its face, presents a dilemma for the Democratic Party. On the one hand, free trade polls well with the blue base, Trump will probably have made protectionism toxic within the party and the country as a whole by 2020, and free trade is sound economics and geopolitics. On the other hand, it is quite likely that the 2020 general election will be decided in the Rust Belt, where there is strong support for protectionism, as evidenced by the success of both Trump and Sherrod Brown. That is the reason Hillary Clinton dishonestly opposed the TPP. It did her little good in the long run.
The Sanders wing of the Democratic Party sounds a lot like Trump on free trade. Realos oppose protectionism. Where is the party to go?
Fortunately, there is a way to marry effective opposition to Trump on trade issues with sound economic policy–refocus the debate on China and its violations of international norms. If I were, say, Joe Biden, I would argue that Trump has been right to take a hard line with the Chinese, but that he has done it in a completely inept way; in particular, it was a mistake to alienate our allies first. The best way to deal with China is to work with our partners to create new trade deals and reform the WTO, not to impose mindless tariffs on Europe and Canada which make it vastly harder to present a united front against the Chinese.
In other words, bring back Obama’s positions on trade. If packaged properly, they square the circle.