President Donald Trump’s administration questioned whether the “elites” in the United States made a mistake in betting on free trade.
The United States promoted free trade by reducing tariffs, participating in the creation of institutions such as GATT and the WTO, and signing agreements such as NAFTA. In the 21st century, it continued to promote trade agreements to expand markets, strengthen value chains, and sustain its global economic leadership.
Since 1979, the U.S. Congress has approved 17 implementation measures for comprehensive free trade agreements (FTAs) and multilateral trade agreements. Recently, Congress considered and approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which entered into force on July 1, 2020.
Free trade
But a turning point came with Donald Trump’s arrival to the U.S. presidency, first on January 20, 2017, and then on January 20, 2025.
“Our elites miscalculated the willingness of the United States to forever shoulder global burdens that the American people did not see as in the national interest,” the White House said in its 2025 National Security Strategy.
The White House added that these elites overestimated the United States’ ability to simultaneously finance a huge welfare state, regulation, and administration, along with a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex.
Industrial base
The Trump administration reduced its commitment to free trade, considering that it generated unsustainable deficits, loss of industrial jobs, and strategic dependence on China. In addition, it favored tariff policies and bilateral agreements to protect key sectors and rebalance trade relations considered disadvantageous.
In the same document, the White House stated, “(The elites) made a hugely misguided and destructive bet on globalism and so-called ‘free trade,’ which hollowed out the middle class and the industrial base on which American economic and military preeminence depends.”
It then criticized them for allowing allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and at times dragging the United States into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to those of the United States.
“And they tied U.S. policy to a network of international institutions, some of which are driven by overt anti-Americanism and many by a transnationalism that explicitly seeks to dissolve the sovereignty of each state,” the White House said.