As with the 2020 matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the 2024 presidential election pitting Trump against Vice President Kamala Harris lacks a candidate who champions free trade. Given the importance of swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, with their histories of organized labor and manufacturing, neither political party can afford to run on a platform of trade liberalization anymore. This makes it even more important to understand the differences between the two versions of protectionism on offer from Trump and Harris this year.
It wasn’t always like this. U.S. politics had long been characterized by a cleavage between the two political parties on trade. Since the administration of former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the GOP generally embraced free trade, pushing for more open markets and lower tariffs. By contrast, the Democratic Party, which has historically been supported by organized labor, resisted trade liberalization. However, since the administration of former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, Democrats gradually embraced trade liberalization, though often coupled with trade adjustment policies to support affected workers.
During the ensuing period of peak globalization, both parties supported free trade more than ever before. But it didn’t last long for two reasons: first, the political backlash against economic globalization, which surfaced after the global financial crisis; and second, China’s rapid rise as a peer economic and military competitor, which further eroded the U.S. commitment to free trade.
Since 2016, the GOP under Trump has turned deeply protectionist. Trump supports policies of economic nationalism, even isolationism. His zero-sum mentality toward trade limits policy options, with his favored weapon against trade imbalances being the tariff. During his first stint in office, Trump repeatedly deployed tariffs and the threat of tariffs, most importantly by launching a trade war with China that saw levies of up to 25 percent on more than $350 billion worth of imports. But Trump also used sweeping tariffs against steel and aluminum imports, which angered the governments of many allies, including the European Union and Japan. During the 2024 campaign, Trump has once again heralded the use of tariffs, including a proposal to implement a sweeping tariff on all imported goods as well as promising to implement 60 percent tariffs on all goods imported from China.
Since succeeding Trump in 2021, Biden has been no enemy to tariffs. He kept Trump’s China tariffs in place, while also launching new tariffs on the electric vehicle, or EV, supply chain to counter China’s competitive edge in that industry. Biden also used subsidies to boost domestic demand for EVs and encouraged the reshoring of some manufacturing in the U.S. through the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. While Harris has criticized Trump’s embrace of a blanket tariff on all imports, which will likely increase prices and inflation, it’s likely that her economic and trade policies will maintain Biden’s approach to tariffs.
It’s more important than ever, then, to parse out the differences in the two candidates’ economic and trade policies. While both are protectionist, they differ markedly in major ways.
First, Trump embraces tariffs as a general policy to address a number of different goals. Trump probably likes tariffs in part because years of bipartisan consensus on free trade made them such a dramatic gesture. They are the ultimate policy tool that he can wield to coerce, punish and tax any counterparty that does not yield to his domination. He uses them rhetorically to threaten individual countries, like China, but also individual U.S. companies, like John Deere. Tariffs are attractive because they are simple, and they can be used as easy threats against those who cross him.
While both campaigns tout the idea of a stronger U.S., Trump’s language emphasizes threats and dangers that lie beyond the United States’ borders. By contrast, Harris has pledged to work with allies on competition.
Trump has also championed tariffs because he believes they can be used to replace individual income tax as a larger source of government revenue. As Paul Poast argued in his WPR column last week, Trump envisions a smaller federal state that runs a slimmed-down government funded by tariff revenue. While Trump often ignores or dissembles when it comes to the question of who pays for tariffs or how much revenue they can actually generate, he celebrates the notion of easy money from foreign sources filling U.S. government coffers.
Finally, Trump envisions the use of tariffs to remake the U.S. economy as a fortress, internally strong and autonomous from other economies. In recent speeches, he has spoken of federal zones with ultra-low taxes to attract foreign companies to invest in the U.S., thereby taking jobs from other countries, including allies like Germany and South Korea.
While it is difficult to find economists or trade specialists who support Trump’s proposed use of tariffs, his approach appeals to many voters who also see trade as a zero-sum equation in which the U.S. either wins or loses.
By contrast, Harris’ policymaking on trade, following Biden’s approach, is likely to be more selective and multilateral, aspiring to build a stronger U.S. economy that remains integrated into the global economy. This approach uses tariffs strategically as a means of eventually making them unnecessary.
A selective use of tariffs is part of the Democratic Party’s embrace of industrial policy to protect U.S. industry and workers by encouraging foreign direct investment into U.S. manufacturing. This approach does not seek to replace other sources of revenue with tariffs. Nor does it envision a “Fortress America” setting the U.S. apart from the world.
Another key difference is the Trump administration’s reliance on unilateral tariffs compared to the Biden administration’s more coordinated response. Trump used tariffs to punish and anger enemies and friends alike. His tariffs against steel and aluminum from key partners in the EU, Canada, Mexico, Japan and South Korea led to confrontation and, in the case of the EU, retaliatory tariffs on U.S.-made motorcycles and bourbon. In 2021, Biden negotiated an end to these tariffs and began a process of greater coordination with key allies on economic policy, particularly to focus on competition with China. Harris is likely to continue this outreach and multilateral approach with key allies in Europe and East Asia.
Finally, the Democratic Party’s approach to trade and foreign investment is motivated by a desire to increase public confidence in the global economy, which has plummeted in recent years, particularly among Republicans. While both campaigns tout the idea of a stronger U.S., Trump’s language emphasizes threats and dangers that lie beyond the United States’ borders, from immigrants to imports, with walls and tariffs the surest path to a stronger America. By contrast, Harris has pledged to work with allies on competition with China, and her broader platform echoes Biden’s ambition to resist isolationism.
Harris also continues to echo Biden’s emphasis on key new sectors, including clean energy and semiconductors, as areas for increased investment and innovation. The Harris campaign can capitalize on the early results of the Biden plan, including meeting production targets at a semiconductor plant in Arizona that was funded by the Taiwanese chip giant the TSMC. Foreign investment in clean energy has also accelerated in response to the IRA, especially from South Korea.
The U.S. won’t see another free-trade presidential candidate until the public is confident that trade benefits Americans. Both parties tout protectionism now to make the U.S. stronger in the future. But the GOP under Trump envisions this as a long-term shift to a more closed and autarkic United States. Harris needs to convince voters that protectionism now can lead to a return to openness and integration later.
Mary Gallagher is the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.