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President Trump set off a wave of protectionist trade policies about seven years ago, back in 2018, and those policies were mostly extended and followed during President Biden’s term of office as well. But unsurprisingly to most economists, trade restrictions have done a poor job of producing the desired results.

Michael Strain provides a trenchant critique of the move to protectionism since the first Trump term in “Protectionism is Failing and Wrongheaded: An Evaluation of the Post-2017 Shift toward Trade Wars and Industrial Policy.” The essay appears in a collection of six essays from the Aspen Economic Strategy Group titled Strengthening America’s Economic Dynamism, edited by Melissa Kearney and Luke Pardue, and published late last year.

As Strain points out, there are typically three concrete benefits claimed for protectionism: more US jobs in manufacturing, reducing US economic ties with China, and reducing the trade deficit. The author goes into these arguments in more detail, but here are some of the highlights.

First, here’s a graph showing manufacturing jobs as a share of total US employment since 1939. There’s a boom-and-bust in manufacturing jobs looking at World War II production, but after that, the line drops steadily until the last decade or so. In particular, the share of manufacturing jobs is falling well before the forces of globalization take hold in the 1970s or 1980s, and well before China joins the World Trade Organization and enters global markets in force in the earyl 2000s. A similar pattern of decline in the share of manufacturing jobs holds all over the world. The key underlying factors here over the decades seem to be steadily growing productivity in manufacturing (think automation and robotics, along with just-in-time inventory), along with a general shift to an economy more oriented around services than around goods. Those productivity gains flattened out for a few years after the Great Recession of 2008-09, and the decline in the share of US manufacturing jobs correspondingly eased off for a few years. But lower productivity growth isn’t a path to future prosperity.

As Strain points out, there are several effects of trade barriers on US manufacturing jobs: a certain domestic industry is protected against competition, but higher prices in that industry can lead to problems for other domestic industries, and foreign countries may retaliate by shutting out US-produced exports. Put these together, and Strain suggests that the Trump tariffs of 2018 may even have led to a reduction in US manufacturing jobs.

Second, consider the goal of reducing US economic ties to China. The US can trade with China either by directly importing from China, or indirectly by having China export to a country like Vietnam or Japan, and then having the US import from those other countries. In recent years, direct US trade with China has declined, but indirect trade through other countries has increased. A standard measure here is to look at “value added”–that is, what portion of US imports of manufacturered goods was created in China.

This figure is based on looking at overall US demand for manufactured goods, then calculating what share of that demand comes from foreign value-added, and finally what share of that foreign value-added comes from China. The upward trend levelled off somewhat after the Great Recession. But seven years of protectionism has not led to any meaningful drop in China’s value-added share.

Finally, consider the goal of reducing the US trade deficit. The graph shows the trade deficit since 1999. President Trump focused on the trade deficit in manufactured goods. This measure of the US trade deficit didn’t move much after about 2011 until the pandemic, when it dropped off and then partially recovered.

The “current account deficit” is a broader measure of the trade deficit. It includes trade in goods and also services, as well as certain income flows related to foreign investments or remittances across borders. This measure also doesn’t change much in the years after the Great Recession, and then gets much worse during the pandemic. In short, seven years of protectionism hasn’t “fixed” the trade deficit, either.

There is a lot more to say about tariffs and protectionism than this quick overview. Strain has more to say in his essay, and I’m sure I’ll have many excuses to return to the topic it the next few years. But for the moment, the main point is simply that judged in terms of its own main justifications, the surge of protectionism since 2018 has not been achieving its goals.

One can of course offer reasons for this failure. A common pattern in politics–and not just in trade issues–is that the failure of past policies to achieve their stated goals then becomes a new justification for more of the same. In this case, the failures of past protectionism become a reason for additional protectionism.

As one example. after Trump renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) back in 2018, transforming it into US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), he said in his press conference: “Once approved by Congress, this new deal will be the most modern, up-to-date, and balanced trade agreement in the history of our country, with the most advanced protections for workers ever developed.” Seven years later, Trump now apparently views the agreement that he renegotiated and lauded as a failure, and promises to dial up tariffs against Mexico and Canada–along with the rest of the world–to new heights.

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