Dealing With Trump's Trade Legacy

The Biden administration will not be content simply to restore the old order

- Cristina Lindblad and Sarah McGregor

If Donald Trump has illustrated anything as president, it’s that the postwar global economic order is more fragile than anyone thought. Think of America’s trading relationships and rank in the world as a painstakingly assembled collection of delicate pottery that for generations has been a source of civic pride and envy from the neighbors. Trump and his deputies have been the raucous gang of teenagers barging their way through, leaving a trail of chipped and smashed artifacts. President-elect Joe Biden is the genial grandfather leading a new team brought in to mend what they can. The questions now are: How much will they save? And how creative will they get in the reconstruction?

The good news for a global economy straining under the weight of a resurgent pandemic is that Trump and his band haven’t destroyed the liberal order, as many feared. They’ve left it battered. Perhaps they’ve even prepared its defenses better for another economic assault from China. But anyone thinking that Biden is simply planning to rebuild the U.S.-led order the way it was might be in for a surprise.

Trump’s biggest legacy for many of those who run the global economy and invest in it will be late-night stress dreams about his chaotic policymaking. Yet Trump and economic generals such as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer have also scrambled the American politics of trade, opened the door to a new suite of tactics and tariffs, and brought to the fore what in many cases have been long-standing and bipartisan U.S. grievances. When Biden speaks of the need to “build back better,” he might be talking about the global economic order as well. It’s something he and his advisers have mulled for years.