I guess I’m in group 3, having been raised academically in group 1. With that said, I’m still not satisfied with the nexus between the economics and the politics of trade benefits. It seems to me that the real value of tariffs or other targeted NTBs isn’t to protect domestic industries - a long-term quixotic effort. Rather, we should use these measures to explicitly correct for externalities and other artificial inefficiencies. 10% tariff because our producers are hurting? Booo! 10% tariff to correct for lax labor and environmental standards? Yes! We shouldn’t just say free trade is good or bad when it is clearly good when the partner is on similar levels wrt its regulatory environment and political system and clearly bad when the partner is an authoritarian regime that is oppressing its own labor force and using subsidies to overproduce. I think this is the spirit of the Biden approach but it was not well articulated to the public, leading to most people thinking Trump had won the argument on trade, which of course was as much about HRC and Bernie pushing back against the Obama approach.
With respect, I think you have the political economy wrong here. It's not about making a case for trade agreements and people's general thoughts on tariffs it's about the cost of goods.
Everyone agrees that inflation was one of the 'top three' issues for voters. And by inflation, voters didn't mean the current rate of inflation but the post-pandemic cost of living increase. Cutting tariffs on China would have decreased costs on products and decreased the cost of living. Biden's promotion of domestic manufacturing (which includes the Chinese tariffs), whatever you think of it on the merits, did not give any political benefit to him.
I guess I’m in group 3, having been raised academically in group 1. With that said, I’m still not satisfied with the nexus between the economics and the politics of trade benefits. It seems to me that the real value of tariffs or other targeted NTBs isn’t to protect domestic industries - a long-term quixotic effort. Rather, we should use these measures to explicitly correct for externalities and other artificial inefficiencies. 10% tariff because our producers are hurting? Booo! 10% tariff to correct for lax labor and environmental standards? Yes! We shouldn’t just say free trade is good or bad when it is clearly good when the partner is on similar levels wrt its regulatory environment and political system and clearly bad when the partner is an authoritarian regime that is oppressing its own labor force and using subsidies to overproduce. I think this is the spirit of the Biden approach but it was not well articulated to the public, leading to most people thinking Trump had won the argument on trade, which of course was as much about HRC and Bernie pushing back against the Obama approach.
With respect, I think you have the political economy wrong here. It's not about making a case for trade agreements and people's general thoughts on tariffs it's about the cost of goods.
Everyone agrees that inflation was one of the 'top three' issues for voters. And by inflation, voters didn't mean the current rate of inflation but the post-pandemic cost of living increase. Cutting tariffs on China would have decreased costs on products and decreased the cost of living. Biden's promotion of domestic manufacturing (which includes the Chinese tariffs), whatever you think of it on the merits, did not give any political benefit to him.