SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE.

• Author: Kolas, Logan
• Position: DOLLARS & SENSE

"Instead of confronting the dangers of the Trump Administration's trade agenda, embracing a 'progressive' case for free trade, and aligning its campaign with a Democratic base that increasingly views free trade more positively, Joe Biden's supply chain 'resilience' plan shows more interest at besting Donald Trump at his own protectionist game." THE HOPE that a Biden Administration would look fondly on free trade is becoming more of a free trader's dying wish than a realistic expectation. The problem with this narrative, of course, was the Trump Administration's embrace of a laundry list of ideas long held by Congressional Democrats, which made them more likely to agree with the President than to oppose him on these measures.

Instead of confronting the dangers of the Trump Administration's trade agenda, embracing a "progressive" case for free trade, and aligning its campaign with a Democratic base that increasingly views free trade more positively, Joe Biden's supply chain "resilience" plan shows more interest at besting Donald Trump at his own protectionist game. That is bad news for those who held out hope that a Biden Administration would be different.

Within the plan sits a mess of protectionist and counterproductive policies that would have been associated with the political fringe less than a decade ago---and certainly a plan with enough trade restrictions to make Pres. Trump blush. In fact, the plan has managed to win the approbation of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon. That is not a good sign.

Let us take a look at five big issues with the Biden camp's proposal.

A Pres. Joe Biden does not need to "rebuild manufacturing in the U.S." America's fading manufacturing sector is the myth that never dies. Worse, it continues to buttress poorly conceived campaign proposals such as Biden's supply chain plan. The U.S. manufacturing sector is not dead. Just last year, before being devastated by the pandemic, U.S. manufacturing output set a record high--and the sector once again proved itself an attractive destination for investment in 2018 when foreign direct investment stock in American manufacturing rose by 10% to 1.77 trillion dollars. Decline in U.S. manufacturing employment, however, has long been a story of American progress, as the sector has stayed competitive by learning how to do more with less. Using the decline in employment to tell a story of sectoral decline, not progress, is a mistake--and it is a mistake that permeates the rest...