I speculated two years ago that the combination of the toxic connection between Trump and protectionism and the schedule for the primaries, which put the protectionist states at the end, might lead the Democrats back to free trade. It hasn’t happened. The party as a whole sees protectionism as a vote winner, and workers negatively impacted by trade deals as swing voters. Nothing is going to change very quickly.
Trade issues can be divided into two parts: China; and everyone else. With China, trade presents serious geopolitical issues; as a result, some forms of protection are inevitable, and possibly even wise. I will discuss those in a future post. As to everyone else, protection is basically unnecessary and counterproductive. There is no realistic possibility of creating a united front against China until the Trump days have been buried, and the stupid tariffs eliminated. That should be done as soon as possible.