When Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign in 2020, he suggested that history would look back on Donald Trump as an aberration in U.S. politics. With his victory last week, Trump has demonstrated that he not only remains a force in American politics but has effectively changed the policy debate in the United States.
Trump's impact on policy was evident within Biden's own administration. Rather than revert to the post-World War II consensus on free trade, the Biden administration kept in place the Trump tariffs on China and only made partial attempts to relieve the national security tariffs on steel and aluminum. In the case of Korea, they never made an attempt to provide any relief.
In terms of new trade initiatives, the Indo-Pacific Framework was supposed to address future-oriented issues such as climate change and supply chains but offered no new market access to U.S. trade partners. The new contours of trade had been set by the Trump administration, the U.S. market was too open and additional tariff relief was not something that would be on the table.
In his new term in office, Trump is essentially offering domestic and foreign businesses a deal. In exchange for moving manufacturing back to the United States to........