At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said a couple times that she wanted "to stop pitting Americans against Americans" in U.S. trade policy:
- "Trade should work for all Americans. Our goal is to stop pitting Americans against each other in our trade policy."
- "... our approach is built on the basic principle that we should not be pitting Americans against Americans and American sectors against American sectors."
- "... we need to do trade in a way that stops pitting Americans against other Americans. One of the things about the traditional free trade agreement is that it has done very, very well for American ag[riculture], especially big ag[riculture]. But it's actually not done well for our heavy industries or industrial workers and that's created this pitting of Americans against each other."
The first two statements are more general, but the last one gets a bit specific, arguing that agricultural and industrial workers have been pitted against each other through trade agreements.
As I see it, there are tradeoffs inherent in all trade policy choices, including both domestic measures and international agreements. If we impose tariffs on imported steel, for example, a small number of corporations and their employees benefit considerably due to reduced competition and higher prices/profits, while a large number of people feel a smaller negative impact from the higher prices, retaliation by other countries, etc. Most economists would say that aggregate economic welfare is reduced through these policies, and some people lose jobs due to the overall negative impact on the economy.
In this way, trade policy choices always "pit Americans against other Americans." You can make different choices, but you can't avoid making a choice that helps some and harms others.
The agriculture vs. industry tradeoff is an interesting one. For whatever reason, U.S. economic policy has long promoted agriculture production and exports. It has done the same for certain industrial sectors (e.g. large civil aircraft), but not others. Is there some alternative version of U.S. economic policy where U.S. steel and autos, for example, were promoted as export-oriented industries? I feel like this is unlikely given certain natural advantages and long-standing domestic policies of the U.S., and corresponding disadvantages and policies of particular other countries, but I'd have to give this some more thought.
It's also worth noting that politicians and policymakers have a choice as to how to approach these tradeoffs, and while the approaches vary over time, political factors almost always plays a crucial role here (politicians and policymakers are looking to reward certain groups in order to reap a political benefit). Regardless of how the choice is made, however, I'm not sure I see a way to avoid the tradeoffs. It would be nice if the overall economic well-being of the country played a bigger role in the decision-making, but I suspect that politics will continue to be the driving force.
