President Trump’s twin trade policy victories may give him a boost with the voters he needs the most as he heads into the 2020 election with ground to make up.
People were split on Trump’s trade wars before he wrapped up a deal with China and Congress passed his United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, according to Gallup polling.
In regions critical for Trump’s reelection, the ramifications of the trade deals might be different. A late December CNN poll had approval for Trump’s trade policy at 46-45%, but that rose to 49-44% in the 2020 election’s battleground states.
A late January poll by the trade publication Farm Journal gave Trump 83% approval with farmers and ranchers, up to three points from the previous month, the highest numbers the journal has reported. That comes despite more than a year of Beijing retaliating during the U.S.-China trade war by suspending U.S. farm purchases and using tariffs directly targeted at rural agricultural regions that supported Trump in 2016. China bought $19.5 billion in U.S. farm goods in 2017. Those purchases dropped to $9.1 billion in 2018 and $8.6 billion in 2019.
Trump seems closer to farmers than ever before. An estimated $26 billion in aid to farmers during the U.S.-China trade war and a promised $40 billion to $50 billion in purchases as part of the eventual deal’s “phase one” has undoubtedly helped. That could make a difference in contested farm states such as Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
“Trump lost Minnesota by just 1 1/2 points last time,” noted Jim Wiesemeyer, political analyst for the market research firm ProFarmer. “I’ve been going throughout the state talking to farmers here, and I think the Trump campaign has a real chance this time.”
Contested Rust Belt states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio could be aided by the USMCA since the deal is intended to shift manufacturing and supply chains away from Mexico and back to the states. It won the backing of even archliberal senators such as Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown. “This trade agreement for the first time ever put workers at the center of the agreement,” Brown said during its final Senate vote. That could help in Brown’s home state, where Trump beat Hillary Clinton, 52-44% in 2016, and more recent polling has given Trump’s possible Democratic opponents such as former Vice President Joe Biden single-digit leads.
Brown’s Ohio colleague, Republican Rob Portman, told the Washington Examiner that USMCA’s nonmanufacturing provision would help too. “USMCA will also help farmers like Frank Burkett, a dairy farmer in Canal Fulton, with new market openings in Canada,” he said, noting the state’s farmers had long pressed for that access.
Trump signed “phase one” of his trade deal with Beijing on Jan. 15, getting an estimated $200 billion in purchases of U.S. goods and services as well as concessions on currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and online piracy. The following day, the Senate sent Trump’s USMCA on trade to his desk, fulfilling a 2016 campaign promise to replace the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement.
“This is the wreckage that I was elected to clean up. It’s probably the reason I ran for president,” Trump said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “More than any other thing, because I couldn’t understand why we were losing all of these jobs to other countries at such a rapid rate.”
The trade deals are not likely to boost economic growth by much. The International Trade Commission, a federal agency, found that the USMCA would raise the U.S. gross domestic product by $68 billion, or about 0.35%, and add 176,000 jobs nationwide, an increase of 0.12% in employment over six years. The China deal, meanwhile, will require close monitoring to ensure Beijing abides by it.
Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert for American Enterprise Institute, noted most voters assume that trade wars cannot be won, so Trump’s apparent wins may impress those who do care about the issue. “I think the main reason for the positive numbers may be that people think Washington got something done,” she said.
Most of the public does view trade as a significant issue. The subject tends to get downplayed because it doesn’t show up among the voters’ top concerns, but an October Gallup poll found that 68% of voters rated the issue as very or extremely important. Trade is broadly popular too. Gallup found that 75% of voters see trade as an opportunity for economic growth, while only 21% see it as a threat. The positive views are strongly bipartisan too, with 79% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans agreeing on it as an opportunity.
Still, there is a disconnect between the general public and the business community on Trump’s trade fights. It generates turmoil in the markets and nervousness from many in the business community that favor certainty and stability; it’s not the same story with the general public. Gallup found that nearly two-thirds of people said the conflicts would help their family and their employer or at least have no impact.
