This is not surprising given the editorial cottage industry that has sprung up in the last three years criticizing Trump’s tack on trade, and his economic policy more generally. But despite the urge of pundits to lump Trump and Bernie together as trade skeptics and populists, there is a world of difference between their positions.
You may think, though, that this negative impact is limited to a relatively small group. Perhaps gains to workers overall outweigh the loss of jobs, say, in the reduced price of goods due to the efficiency of trade. But this is not true for the majority of American workers. As Josh Bivens, of the Economic Policy Institute, has noted, “A reasonably cautious estimate is that between 1973 and 2006, global integration lowered the wages of U.S. workers without a four-year college degree (the large majority of the U.S. workforce) by 4%.” This is taking into account the decrease in prices of consumer goods.
This is, Bivens points out, basic economics. Literally—if you look at a textbook for international trade, the Stolper-Samuelson Theorem says just this. Because of how advanced the U.S. economy is relative to its trading partners, the benefits of trade redound primarily to the benefit of high-end sectors, while we import cheaper goods from overseas rather than making them at home. Not only does this depress wages, it generates inequality. High-earners gain and low-earners lose.
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