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Replacing Free Trade with Fair Trade [1]

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Date: 2025-04-07

Trump’s tariff policy has brought chaos to international trade and the stock market. But it would be foolish of the Democrats to promote a restoration of the status quo ante. Free trade agreements like NAFTA have been a tool for international businesses to exploit low wage labor abroad in order to suppress wages at home. There is a good reason that unions like the UAW support tariffs.

The free trade movement and its institutions, like the WTO, were intended to promote the interests of businesses in wealthy developed countries, not workers anywhere in the world. While free trade can lower the costs of consumer goods, the cost savings are built on the backs of workers who are put in international competition with each other.

It is time for Democrats to reject free trade fundamentalism and to promote trade policies, including targeted tariffs, that remove the incentive for US companies to move their operations offshore just to lower the cost of labor. Instead of rewarding companies that line the pockets of Trump and his billionaire buddies, start rewarding countries and companies that have good labor standards and pay their workers fairly. As the UAW statement puts it:

Companies must not be allowed to close factories and ship jobs to high-exploitation, low-wage countries, and to pad already-massive profits by driving a race to the bottom among autoworkers. This includes a North American minimum wage to significantly raise pay and benefits for Mexican autoworkers, along with stronger protections for labor rights and penalties for offshoring, so that workers are no longer forced to compete with one another over crumbs while the automakers walk away with a bigger and bigger slice of the pie.

So call out Trump’s tariffs as a ploy to attack his enemies, reward his friends, and increase his own power, but don’t fall for the neoliberal line that all tariffs are bad. Now that he has broken the system, use the tool to build the power of labor.

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