Why Americans Voted for Trade Protectionism Again: A Review of Political-Economic Models

Abstract

Since 2018, the USA has unilaterally imposed tariffs on imports of goods from abroad, especially from China. President Trump enacted since the inauguration for his second term further increases in tariffs, for imports from Mexico, Canada, China, und announced recently tariffs for imports from Europe. Why did a politician who explicitly advocated foreign trade protectionism become again president of the world’s most economically developed country? Why do US voters value the economic freedom of being able to buy cheaper foreign goods instead of more expensive domestic goods less than the rather dubious promise of making domestic industry great again? The paper answers these questions based on a review of political-economic models published since Trump’s first term as follows: Foreign trade protectionism has once again become politically powerful in the USA because, within the framework of international supply policy, US globalization losers could not be compensated, white lower middle-class men in the old industrial areas of the USA were tormented by status anxiety towards people of different colors and foreigners, about half of the US electorate no longer identified with the nation as a whole but only with their own social class, and after China joined the WTO, voters and party representatives who were in favor of free trade became nationalists and protectionist social conservatives. According to an economically liberal interpretation of natural law, however, free international trade does not contradict social conservatism.