This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, July 29th, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

Where do candidates Trump and Harris stand on trade? Cato Scott Lenscombe urges you not to get

your hopes up as neither candidate seems poised to make a forthright case for the

economic and national security benefits of robust open trade.

We spoke last week.

At the outset, of course, we have to characterize these discussions

a little more carefully because we're talking about somebody who is a part of an

administration but did not set trade policy in her role as vice president who is very likely to challenge somebody who has

four years of record when it comes to dealing with trade issues.

So to the extent that Vice President Harris,

who is the likely Democratic nominee in 2024, has a record on trade, or public statements on trade, what is the general sense of her view?

My general takeaway is that it's a lot of politics and not a lot of substance.

For example, as a senator and as a presidential candidate in the 2020 race Harris was quite vocally anti-tariff.

So that puts a big checkbox on the free trade side of things.

Characterizing the tariffs implemented during the Trump administration is bad for the economy and for consumers and for manufacturers and the rest. But on the other hand, she has also

spoken out during that same election season against the USMCA, which was Donald Trump's NAFTA renegotiation,

which was actually mainly still a free trade deal,

as not being sufficiently good on environmental and labor issues.

She's also previously said bad things about the Trans-Pacific

Partnership for similar reasons.

But again, you really don't know is bashing USMCA because it's

Trump's USMCA, is hitting TPP part of the 2016 turn of the entire Democratic Party against the deal because of political issues.

...