A ‘trade policy for the middle class’ will not save US manufacturing

US TRADE policy is on the cusp of a major transformation. In a recent speech at the Brookings Institution, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, outlined the administration’s strategy to “build a fairer, more durable global economic order”.

At the heart of this new approach is the belief that, although the world has reaped the benefits of free trade over the past several decades, American workers got a raw deal.

Sullivan’s first piece of evidence is that “America’s industrial base had been hollowed out”. While most analysts focus on manufacturing’s declining share of gross domestic product – 11 per cent in 2021, compared to 28.1 per cent in 1953 – the decline of manufacturing is also reflected in the composition of US trade.