Jennifer M. Harris, Columnist

Trump Should Follow Reagan's Lead on Trade

Three deals with France, Germany, Japan and the UK in the 1980s helped preserve the open global trading system.

February 23, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC

Jennifer Harris served as Senior Director, International Economics on the National Security Council and National Economic Council in the Biden administration. She is the co-author of "War by Other Means: Geoeconomics & Statecraft."

President Reagan and Prime Minister Nakasone.
Photographer: Corbis via Getty Images

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Foreign competition is squeezing American manufacturing companies. U.S. factories are shedding jobs and ceding market share to cheap Asian exports. And the president isn’t going to take it anymore.

Welcome to 1985. Trade anxieties dominated the headlines then as they do today, and Washington was scrambling to respond. President Ronald Reagan was keenly aware that the tariffs he had slapped on Japanese imports during his first term had helped get him re-elected. He also knew they were not a solution, that he needed to think bigger.