Since taking office, Donald Trump’s seesawing tariff announcements have left elected Democrats uncertain over how to respond. Consumer sentiment is dropping precipitously in anticipation of higher prices, and recent polls suggest a majority of Democratic, Republican, and independent voters are worried about the likelihood of a recession this year. But while many in the party are eager to capitalize on the anxiety Trump’s erratic trade agenda has stoked, a handful of Democrats from Rust Belt and rural swing districts are cautioning against blanket opposition.
“Tariffs are a necessary component of any successful industrial policy.”
“Anti-tariff absolutism is a mistake,” declared Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) in a recent New York Times op-ed. “If you oppose all tariffs,” he wrote, “you are essentially signaling that you are comfortable with exploited foreign workers making your stuff at the expense of American workers.” Deluzio’s stance was in line with a labor-left outlook that fell out of favor among Democrats as the party’s center of gravity shifted away from the old industrial heartlands and toward coastal cities. Recognizing that trade shocks and the loss of stable, decent work for Americans without a college degree have contributed to the party’s losses outside major metropolitan areas, Democrats like Deluzio and Rep. Jared Golden of Maine maintain that winning back the trust of working-class voters won’t happen if progressives dismiss the concerns that drove them away in the first place.
As Democrats look to the 2026 midterms, a simple anti-tariff message might seem like a way to reach voters buffeted by rising prices. But this would be a mistake. Deluzio and Golden are right: Tariffs are a necessary component of any successful industrial policy. This is why, for most of the 20th century, developing and advanced countries alike used trade barriers to bolster export promotion, encourage a diversified “home market,” and underpin employment levels. As America’s own industrial expansion in the late 19th century attests, import substitution cannot be incentivized and made sustainable for local economies without measures that dramatically reduce the competitiveness of some foreign inputs.
The willingness to take a nuanced view of Trump’s tariffs is also consistent with Democrats’ own recent policy commitments. Just last May, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer joined six Democratic Senators from the Rust Belt to press then-President Biden to increase tariffs on China. At that point, Biden had already extended some of the levies imposed by the first Trump administration; by September, new duties on EVs, EV batteries, semiconductors, solar panels, and steel and aluminum were finalized. Those measures were part of a broader vision that also encompassed tax credits, tougher antitrust enforcement, and project-labor agreements that broke more forcefully with the old Washington Consensus than Trump’s first term did.
A volte face on protectionism for the sake of short-term political gain would also diverge from the preferences of major industrial unions such as the UAW, the IBEW, and the AFL-CIO. In a message posted to X this month, UAW leader Shawn Fain stated, “The UAW supports aggressive tariff action to protect American manufacturing jobs as a good first step to undoing decades of anti-worker trade policy.” Despite the union’s opposition to other Trump policies, Fain said, it is “willing to support the Trump Administration’s use of tariffs to stop plant closures and curb the power of corporations that pit US workers against workers in other countries.”
The AFL-CIO, for its part, cautioned that while it opposes the way Trump is implementing his trade policy, the “Prevent Tariff Abuse Act,” sponsored by Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) “would permanently remove the ability…to use International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy tariffs or duties in response to an economic emergency,” making it harder to prevent dumping and related forms of unfair competition the union has long fought.
These notes of dissent are a reminder that supporting domestic production still has immense material stakes for millions of union households. Trade policy is also relevant to organized labor’s power in other ways. Take the domestic content rules set by the Biden administration. When used in concert with project-labor agreements for infrastructure and plant construction, such rules can stimulate an extended chain of demand for regional manufacturing and union locals. That, in turn, can increase services and recruitment dedicated to vocational training, thereby creating more pathways outside of college for working-class young adults.
Tariffs alone won’t precipitate this virtuous cycle, but it is doubtful it can be engineered without them. Instead of lambasting Trump’s tariffs, Democrats should heed Deluzio’s call and combine a framework for strategic protection, as the Biden administration sought to do, with measures that make it harder for large firms to price-gouge and circumvent labor law. Furthermore, they would do well to study the ideas of Burke-Hartke, the labor-left’s unrealized trade revision and tax repatriation bill from the 1970s, and past proposals for a Trade Adjustment Reconstruction Bank on the model of the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation.
The party’s populist wing should also acknowledge and seek to reverse the inexplicable expiration in 2022 of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program, arguably the Biden administration’s major blunder on trade-related issues. Dating back to the Kennedy era, TAA was woefully underfunded for decades and poorly operationalized. Nonetheless, it provided a foundation for worker retraining and supplemental unemployment insurance that, if properly overhauled, could boost the labor participation rate in distressed regions, attract new investment, and limit the impact of plant closures.
Deluzio’s “New Economic Patriots” caucus, formed just this week, could be the vehicle to revamp the pro-worker trade agenda that Biden’s team partially implemented. Though former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown’s defeat last year was the latest blow to the Democrats’ Rust Belt contingent, Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), and many others continue to advocate for intelligent trade agreements that boost pollution and labor standards among America’s close allies while deterring dumping and exploitation by countries with poor human-rights records. In fact, in 2018 and 2019 the Democratic House caucus was quite willing to work with Trump’s trade appointees, particularly then-US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. As former US trade negotiator David Boling noted in The Hill, even amid impeachment hearings over 190 House Democrats voted for the USMCA, Trump’s NAFTA update, on the basis of its improved labor provisions.
The party’s congressional caucus is now under immense pressure to reject any collaboration with the administration—even on questions that, on balance, favor Democrats’ historical stances on labor, “Buy American” rules, and concentrated economic power. Trump’s haphazard methods, which have perplexed and frustrated an array of small and mid-size businesses, have also put Rust Belt Democrats in a bind. The party’s congressional delegations from Michigan and Wisconsin are in an especially tough position due to the complexity of cross-border and multistage supply chains. Other members of Deluzio’s nascent group like Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), who touted the regional benefits of Biden’s industrial policies are, for the moment, alert to the potential passed-on costs of tariffs; Rep. Golden’s BUILT USA Act, which calls for a universal 10 percent tariff, appears to have no traction among fellow Democrats.
Moreover, the confusion over Trump’s oscillating tariff threats and souring relations with Canada, Mexico, and other allies may make it politically expedient for Democrats to pivot away from the trade skepticism of the Biden years. The electorate’s tepid response to Biden’s own attempts to revive American manufacturing amid high inflation certainly suggests its appetite for such undertakings is limited. Rampant speculation that tariffs augur an era of stagflation has also increased pressure in some Democratic circles to merely repeat the grim predictions of economists who inveigh against any form of industrial policy.
It would, however, be short-sighted for Democrats to cede the appeal of protectionism to Trump. Thus far, his second administration is both more techno-libertarian and more radically centralizing in its assertion of executive authority than the first. This dynamic has forced some progressives to contemplate how economic democracy could be advanced through a vision that is an alternative to, but not the polar opposite of, “America First.” If Democrats care at all about returning power and oversight to Congress, trade policy—an issue that was removed from Congress’s remit in the 20th century and concentrated within the executive branch and the foreign-policy establishment—is a good place to start.