Republican Convention: Live Coverage Of The Final Night

Wanting well-negotiated (and enforceable) trade deals makes sense and is something we arguably lack with China right now. But it’s very unclear why bilateral deals should be preferable to big multiparty deals. And NAFTA, of course, only involves three countries.

Trump’s “now I’m going to make our country rich again,” sounds like a secular version of a prosperity gospel. But Trump’s approach to trade brings him into stark opposition with the establishment wing of the Republican Party, which favors trade agreements and more open labor regulations. If Trump loses in November, how will the GOP make sense of the issue of trade? It’s a topic I discussed earlier this week with the descendents of two former Republican presidents, both of whom believe there is no going back from a globalized world and marketplace. But Tweed Roosevelt, great-grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt, noted, “The Republicans are going to have to find a way to deal with the problems people face, the job uncertainty and flat income.”

The longer this speech goes on, the more I wonder about those speechwriters that were supposedly brought in — I’m unsure of the structure of this speech. I thought he had already covered trade, but just now, Trump looped back in on it again. Kind of odd — usually politicians like to have a stump you can follow logically.