The popular fury over trade policies that have devastated American communities is rarely taken seriously by the political and media elites that keep trying to narrow the national political discourse into an endless loop of empty discussions about personalities and tactics. But trade is a huge issue on the ground in states where Americans actually vote.
The races for both the Republican and the Democratic presidential nominations have exposed the intensity of concern about the damage done by the North American Free Trade Agreement, normalization of trade relations with China and a host of lesser global agreements to workers in battleground states across the country. Indeed, the “surprise” results in Democratic primaries in states such as Michigan and Indiana can be traced in no small measure to a sense that the winner of those primaries, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, was firmer in his opposition to the next big trade deal: the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement.
