Warren's Trade Plan Is Smart and Problematic

It’s safe to say that the postwar free-trade consensus in Washington has crumbled. The main agent of its destruction was President Donald Trump, who fulfilled his campaign promises by canceling free-trade deals and launching trade wars with almost every country with which the U.S. does business. But the turn against free trade is bipartisan -- socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also promised to pull out of some international deals, and some prominent Democrats have backed Trump’s tariffs against China.

Now Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has released a trade plan that goes squarely against the old consensus. Warren’s “A Plan For Economic Patriotism” would seek to revive U.S. industry in a number of ways -- some of them smart, some of them problematic. The plan would leverage government-funded research and development to boost industry -- a very good but hardly novel idea -- and promote manufacturing (Warren also released a companion proposal specifically about manufacturing). The plan also would aggressively promote U.S. exports.