Mark Gongloff, Columnist

Trump’s Trade War Is Hurting His 2016 Swing States

Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin may be worse off than they were four years ago.

October 2, 2019 at 8:54 PM UTC

Mark Gongloff is a Bloomberg Opinion editor and columnist covering climate change. He previously worked for Fortune.com, the Huffington Post and the Wall Street Journal.

Trump in Michigan, where the hiring hasn’t been so great lately.
Photographer: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images North America

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A relatively unsung factor behind President Donald Trump’s election in 2016 — beyond James Comey, Russian meddling and Hillary Clinton forgetting Wisconsin — was a near-recession that few noticed at the time. It might have tipped key swing states in Trump’s favor.

The bad news for Trump in 2020 is that those same states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and the aforementioned Wisconsin — are once again under the economic weather, notes Karl Smith. In fact, in some ways, they’re in worse shape than in 2015: