Welcoming Anti-Trump Liberals to the Free Trade Club

The real case for free trade is not "my enemies hate it" or "it's cheaper for me, personally" but "it makes the world richer, freer, and more peaceful."

After decades of shouting into the void that free trade is good, those of us in the "eliminate tariffs, embrace comparative advantage, and let me buy my haggis-flavored chips online without an import tax" crowd are experiencing something that hasn't happened in a while: new friends. Things have been especially lonely in recent years, as the right veered away from offering even lip service to free trade while the left coasted on the fumes of its union-driven protectionist past.

But a recent poll from the Polarization Research Lab shows those same lefties making a sudden and striking turn. At the start of 2024, liberals and conservatives were nearly identical in their lukewarm support for unrestricted trade—about 20 percent each in favor. Following President Donald Trump's electoral win and renewed protectionist rhetoric, liberal support has more than doubled to over 40 percent.

Some analysts see this as classic negative partisanship: Democrats embracing
trade mostly because Trump doesn't. Others—such as the lab's director, Sean Westwood—argue the shift is pragmatic rather than tribal: an economic reaction to market instability and broader uncertainty, not just a red vs. blue reflex. Either way, the political winds around trade are blowing harder than ever, and not always with reasoned consistency.

In the same breath, Americans have told Harvard CAPS/Harris pollsters that they love free trade (84 percent support it!) and also that they think tariffs are necessary to protect U.S. jobs (66 percent agree). This cognitive dissonance is often rationalized by imagining tariffs as a clever bit of short-term gamesmanship—leverage to force other countries, particularly China, to lower their barriers. But Trump didn't run on a strategic, time-
limited tariff plan; he ran on permanent economic nationalism. Despite the populist bluster, the same poll finds only 45 percent of Americans actually approve of his tariff agenda and just 41 percent back his inflation record.

While tariffs may not look ruinous in the macro—imports amount to only about 11 percent of American GDP—their ripple effects are real, jacking up domestic prices and scrambling supply chains in ways that make the economy feel chaotic even when the top-line numbers don't scream crisis yet.

This isn't the first time Americans have professed support for free trade while simultaneously endorsing protectionist measures. A 2024 Cato Institute/YouGov survey conducted while Joe Biden was still president highlighted this contradiction: While 63 percent of respondents favored increasing trade with other nations, a significant portion also supported tariffs on specific products, such as blue jeans, to boost domestic production. Yet this support waned when potential price increases were introduced into the poll questions: If the tariffs brought a $10 price hike, 66 percent were opposed. While the public may appreciate the abstract benefits of free trade, their support may be contingent on immediate economic impacts, particularly price sensitivity.

Today's newfound support for free trade seems to be less about discovering Adam Smith and more about discovering that protectionism might cost you your job at the chip fab, your vacation to Cabo, or your sweet deal on Amazon Basics. As The Washington Post recently reported, Republican primary voters seem increasingly wary of Trump's economic nationalism—not because they've seen the light on global economic cooperation, but because they're worried about the price tag. Meanwhile, Democrats are suddenly remembering that globalist wasn't always a slur.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, figures like Richard Cobden and Jane Addams championed free trade as a means to promote global harmony and social progress. But over time, this perspective shifted, with modern left-leaning factions viewing free trade with skepticism, often corresponding with the rise of labor politics in the modern era. National conservatism has pushed hostility to trade back into the conversation on the right, though Trump's degree of fondness for tariffs seems to be somewhat sui generis.

This history underscores the fluidity of political alignments around trade—and the long-term importance of grounding support in consistent principles rather than transient political and economic conditions.

Let's be clear: If you just decided that tariffs are bad because Trump is for them and you're against Trump, or because your
401(k) is being battered by the inflationary effects of the trade war you once half-heartedly supported, welcome! Hop in the back seat. We're glad you're here. But the reason American trade policy has strayed so dangerously off course is because too many people became pro-trade only when it became politically expedient—or emotionally satisfying—to be so.

The real case for free trade is not "my enemies hate it" or "it's cheaper for me, personally" but "it makes the world richer, freer, and more peaceful." Tariffs are just taxes in sheep's clothing—dressed up as patriotism, but fundamentally designed to pick your pocket. They don't protect American workers; they protect politically favored industries from having to innovate, improve, or compete. Every time you pay more for a washing machine or a beer because of a tariff, you're experiencing crony capitalism with a red, white, and blue bow on top.

Free trade, by contrast, is capitalism at its most honest: voluntary exchange across borders that leaves both parties
better off. It doesn't require central planning, special favors, or a government agency to decide which industries are "strategic." It just works. And for those of us who never stopped saying so, even during the dark NAFTA-hating days of the Trump/Biden tariff continuum, the principle remains: The freer the trade, the better the world.

If you're ready to get serious about dismantling the tariffs that strangle global exchange, grab a seat. (Or in the immortal words of Mean Girls: "Get in, loser. We're going shopping.") But if you're just here to score points in the tribal partisan war of the moment, don't expect us to hand over the aux cord. You can sit with us and listen—but the playlist is Milton Friedman, Frédéric Bastiat, and David Ricardo. And we're playing it on repeat.