Biden Embraces Trumpism on Free Trade
The Democratic candidate doesn’t support tariffs, but he favors subsidies for domestic producers.
Running against Trump, if not Trumpism.
Photographer: Mark Makela/Getty Images North AmericaPresident Donald Trump’s poll numbers are bleak. No matter the outcome in November, however, on at least one issue his side can declare victory: The era of free trade, already on the wane, is officially over. It has been replaced by a new “America first” industrial policy, which even Trump’s Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, has now embraced.
Biden’s campaign is shifting its economic focus from “green jobs” to “reversing offshoring.” In political terms, the proposal goes at Trump’s (relative) strength — the economy. On policy terms, however, Biden is continuing the abandonment of the economic narrative that has sustained centrist Democrats since the 1990s. The basic story was that offshoring and deindustrialization were inevitable, and the important thing was to train Americans for the jobs of the 21st century.