In the United States of 2025, American trade policy is no longer merely an economic lever. It has mutated into something deeper: a vessel for cultural memory, a battleground for political realignment, and a symbol of sovereignty in a post-industrial society adrift. As the Trump administration once again wields tariffs aggressively—this time with even fewer guardrails than before—it becomes clear that trade, once the domain of economists and technocrats, now animates tribal political identities and ideological fractures within both major parties.
For decades, bipartisan consensus on free trade reigned supreme. The Democratic Party embraced globalization in the 1990s through North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Republican elites did the same, aligning with corporate interests and market liberalization. But this consensus cracked in the wake of deindustrialization, community collapse, and the stark realization during the COVID-19 pandemic that the U.S. no longer manufactured many essentials—from baby formula to surgical masks.
A policy tool reclaimed—and misused
In a recent article for The American Prospect, Lori Wallach—Director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project—delivers a sharp dissection of both Trump-era and Biden-era tariffs, revealing a fundamental paradox in their application: tariffs work, but only if deployed strategically and predictably. Trump’s current tariff blitz is chaotic and personalized—China one day, Denmark the next (over Greenland), then Colombia, then back to Mexico. These moves are less about rebalancing trade or rebuilding industry than about projection and performance. He has threatened tariffs over everything from migration to diplomacy, even when trade balances are irrelevant or favorable—like with Canada, where the U.S. runs a surplus excluding crude oil refined in northern states. Meanwhile, genuine surplus powers—Germany, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea—receive less scrutiny.
Ironically, tariffs on China made sense—but even here, enforcement falters. Over four million Chinese e-commerce packages enter the U.S. daily, skirting tariffs via the “de minimis” loophole. Wallach notes that Trump initially acted to close it—until reversing course after a closed-door meeting with FedEx’s CEO, whose company profits handsomely from delivering these untaxed parcels. Trade cheating, it seems, was negotiable.
Tariffs as cultural signifiers
What changed between 1994 and 2024 wasn’t just economic structure, but political sensibility. Tariffs have become a form of cultural expression. In communities gutted by deindustrialization—from Youngstown to Erie—they are seen not as taxes, but as retribution. They signal that someone in Washington finally “gets it.” The populist right now owns a language of economic nationalism that was once native to the New Deal left. And moderate Democrats, long allergic to protectionism, increasingly struggle to respond.
Trump’s use of American trade policy plays into this symbolic terrain. His base doesn’t need coherent strategy—they need affirmation. When Trump threatens tariffs against a country for “disrespecting” the U.S., it reads not as policy failure but as masculine projection. And despite erratic enforcement, many voters embrace this unpredictability as authenticity.
At the same time, voices like Wallach’s—once marginal within Democratic circles—now find greater resonance. Her argument is technical, detailed, and grounded in WTO law, but its appeal lies in its clarity: trade has been used against American workers. Correcting this requires more than slogans. It requires structural change.
The party realignments beneath the policy
The ideological roles of America’s parties are in flux. The Republican Party, once the champion of free markets, now tilts toward economic nationalism—though with uneven intellectual infrastructure. Trump’s trade hawkishness lacks the institutional scaffolding of coherent industrial strategy. It is tariffs without transformation.
Conversely, the Democratic Party is caught between its donor class and its working-class roots. Biden’s embrace of industrial policy marked a pivot—but one that is fragile, especially as post-2024 Democratic leadership remains unsettled. With Biden choosing not to run for re-election and a fractured primary field having failed to produce a unifying figure, Democrats now face a question once posed to Republicans: who are they when stripped of consensus?
This ideological volatility maps directly onto American trade policy. Protectionist rhetoric now wins swing districts. A 2024 Reuters poll found that 56% of Americans supported a candidate promising 10% tariffs across the board. The figure jumped to 61% among non-college-educated voters. The working class, once the Democratic core, increasingly embraces Republican trade populism—not out of loyalty, but out of recognition.
Structural problems, structural solutions
Wallach’s critique also makes clear that tariffs alone are insufficient. They must be coupled with enforceable labor standards, union protections, and competition policy. Otherwise, gains go to shareholders, not workers. She reminds us of a 2004 paper by Paul Samuelson, the high priest of neoclassical economics, who acknowledged that offshoring can cause net losses for workers in high-wage countries. This was no longer abstract theory—it was measurable harm.
Moreover, the global landscape is now dominated by surplus nations—China, Germany, South Korea, Vietnam—whose trade strategies hinge on suppressed consumption, export obsession, and state-subsidized overcapacity. These countries have entrenched trade surpluses with the U.S., and decades of litigation at the WTO have failed to change their behavior.
In this context, rebalancing trade may require coordinated tariff regimes among deficit countries. Or, failing that, a unilateral U.S. policy that taxes foreign capital inflows and applies sectoral tariffs predictably over time. Wallach cites a 2019 bipartisan bill by Senators Tammy Baldwin and Josh Hawley, which proposed a surcharge on investment inflows derived from trade surpluses—a direct challenge to the mercantilist strategies of countries like China and Germany.
Identity first, policy second
Tariffs today do more than regulate imports; they demarcate identity. In an era of epistemic fragmentation, where media ecosystems and political allegiance determine reality, American trade policy has become part of a culture war over who America serves. For many, tariffs are the last vestige of a government willing to take sides—with workers, not markets; with communities, not abstract growth.
And yet, as Wallach emphasizes, the success of this tool hinges on discipline. It is one thing to levy tariffs against Chinese solar panels made with forced labor; it is another to threaten Colombia over deportations. The difference lies not only in economics but in governance. Will trade policy be marshaled for strategic rebuilding—or reduced to impulse?
At its best, trade policy can rebuild a nation’s industrial core and reassert democratic control over economic flows. But that outcome requires planning, consistency, and moral seriousness—qualities in short supply when tariffs become stand-ins for grievance politics. The challenge, then, is not whether to use tariffs, but how to reclaim them from spectacle and reintegrate them into a broader, fairer vision of economic sovereignty.
In 2025, American trade policy is no longer an argument among economists. It is a referendum on what kind of country the United States is—and who it is for.