Trump's change in stance - from a businessman endorsing overseas manufacturing to a politician criticizing it - raises interesting questions about the role of government and the limits of the “market.”
As a businessman, Trump has been a living example of how the “market” works itself out: companies are looking to maximize profits, and if it's cheaper to manufacture in Bangladesh or China, that's where they go. In 2005, in “Outsourcing Creates Jobs in the Long Run,” he wrote that outsourcing can be a necessary measure for business survival, and there is nothing wrong with it. The Donald J. Trump Collection and Trump Home clothing lines were made in countries like China, Bangladesh and Mexico, where labor is cheaper. In 2012, on “Late Show with David Letterman,” Letterman showed Trump Collection shirts made in Bangladesh, and Trump praised the practice.
Trump, as a pure businessman, was right: he prioritized profit and efficiency over “America First” ideology, and his planning horizon did not extend beyond personal success. The logic is clear: if global competition is pressing, business will adapt, and the government doesn't need to intervene. It worked - for Trump, for his companies, and for many others.
But then he becomes a politician and - whoa, it turns out there's a trade imbalance, the world doesn't buy enough from the U.S.! How is this possible in a post-industrial country with manufacturing in third world countries? Doesn't the damn business, left to itself, consider the social, political and strategic implications? Moreover, the market is in no hurry to decide what to do about these “side effects” - lost jobs, decline of regions like the Rust Belt, dependence on geopolitical adversaries. Trump the politician has decided that the market is taking too far away from the “common good” - and has started demanding intervention: tariffs, protectionism, “bring manufacturing home,” “correct market distortions.”
The market doesn't have to balance this - it just goes where it's cheaper. And here's the question: if the government doesn't step in, then who will? Trump's change shows that even those who used to sing hymns to the free market can readjust when they see that it doesn't solve everything. The other thing is that his protectionism is not a panacea either, just a different set of trade-offs.
Now that businessmen are rightly outraged, it's Trump and his fans who are annoyed. So who's right? No one and both at once. Trump the businessman saw the world through numbers and profit - and that's true for business. Trump the politician looks through the lens of power, sovereignty, and people's sentiments - and that's true for the country. The problem is that these truths are not friends: one wins at the expense of the other.
