Trump and U.S. Trade Policy: What’s Known is Scary, What’s Not May be Worse

For the past two decades, the central question in U.S. trade policy has been whether the government could continue to move forward in liberalizing trade. The answer was usually yes, but slowly. For the next four years, following the election of Donald Trump as president, the central question will be a different one: will the United States move backwards on trade, and if so how fast and with what consequences?

The honest answer—and it will take some months or longer for a full accounting of what happened in this election—is that the unknowns are bigger than the knowns. And, to quote former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the “unknown unknowns” may matter most of all.

Let’s start with the knowns:

Turning to the unknowns:

The “unknown unknowns”: