The writer was the US trade representative in the Trump administration

Critics of Donald Trump’s popular tariff proposals claim they will be inflationary and harm the economy. The fact that this never happened during Trump’s first term, when we raised tariffs, is reason enough to be sceptical of such criticisms. But the problems with them go deeper. Few of those who criticise these tariffs stop to consider what the brand of free trade they have promoted has done to America and to American workers over the past 30 years.

In the past three decades we have lost millions of jobs, many of them high- paying manufacturing ones. We have seen median wages stagnate, except for a period during Trump’s administration. Communities across America have been destroyed. The two-thirds of our workforce with only high school diplomas live on average over eight years less than college graduates.