To understand how much President Donald Trump has transformed the American economy, just listen to Bruce Haines, who spent decades as CEO at the U.S.
Steel mills in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) remain empty.
Trump’s response to the pandemic is the main reason many voters cite for supporting his opponent.
`I’ve spent 35 years in the steel business and I can tell you, unfair trade deals have been made by both Republicans and Democrats,` Haines said.
He complains that both parties have abandoned manufacturing, which once provided stable middle-class jobs.
Mr. Donald Trump is stepping up to the podium to speak at a campaign rally.
Covid-19 has created a major reversal in Trump’s presidency.
Despite one of the worst years in recent American history, the issue on which Trump is rated highest is still the economy.
Long before Trump appeared on the political stage, powerful forces were reshaping the economy and stirring up worries about middle-income job security and America’s economic superiority.
Eschewing both economic and political orthodoxy, Trump has at times successfully combined seemingly contradictory or inconsistent issues to win over both hard-line capitalists and the working class.
Trump has created a Republican Party that preaches free trade, low spending, and debt reduction and turned it into a party that waged trade wars even with allies, racked up record peacetime deficits, and protected
`He has completely caused the Republican Party to abandon the idea of reducing spending on social security and health care,` said Michael R. Strain, Economist at the Enterprise Institute.
On immigration, Trump has remade the political landscape in a different way.
Therefore, the Democratic Party also changed in turn.
Trade changes are the most important.
So, regardless of who is in the White House over the next four years, economic policy will likely place greater emphasis on jobs and industries where America is threatened by China and other foreign competition.
A pro-Trump banner in the cornfield of Meadow Spring Farm in Lititz, Pennsylvania.
Charles Jefferson, owner of Montage Mountain Ski Resort near Scranton (Pennsylvania), sees a clear shift in the economy.
Mr. Jefferson, 55, who grew up in North Philadelphia in a working-class family, recalls the failed jobs that many Democratic leaders considered unstoppable in a globalized world.
Manufacturing rebounded after bottoming out during the Great Recession but struggled during President Barack Obama’s second term.
Manufacturing still represents a relatively small portion of the US economy, accounting for 11% of the country’s total output and employing less than 9% of workers.
As a result, in this election, unlike the last, the importance of manufacturing and the need for a more skeptical approach to free trade are no longer up for debate.
Mr. Biden, after decades of supporting trade agreements, is proposing a “nationwide” program that promises to “use the full power of the federal government to strengthen public health.”
Even voters who don’t particularly like Trump credit him with re-energizing the economy.
`He talks too much. And his accent is terrible,` said Mr. Dealtrey, who has lived long enough to distinguish a new Goodyear or Michelin tire by its smell.
But with election day just over a week away, Mr. Dealtrey plans to support Trump again.
How responsible Trump is for reframing some important economic issues is debatable.
Similarly, Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, said that Trump was driven by trends and his supporters.
By simultaneously pursuing steep tax cuts for businesses and wealthy individuals, increasing military spending, and refusing to cut spending on healthcare and social security, Trump has created trillion-dollar deficits.
`Trump has done a lot to legitimize deficit spending,` Mr. Jason Furman assessed.
That doesn’t mean deficit worries go away.
Back in his office, Dealtrey recalls wondering about the size of the deficit.
