To say that both countries gain overall from trade is not to claim that every citizen of each country benefits. Changes in trade or tariffs give rise to both winners and losers within each country. But whereas winners tend to outnumber losers when trade is liberalized, raising tariffs normally has the opposite result.
Trump appears to have engineered a spectacular example of this: his trade war with China has hurt almost every segment of the US economy, and created very few winners. The losers include not only consumers, but also firms and the workers they employ, from farmers losing their export markets to manufacturers forced to pay higher input costs. Even the US auto industry, which did not ask for Trump’s “protection,” is worse off overall because it has to pay more for imported steel and auto parts.
As a result, Trump has come close to accomplishing something seemingly impossible: tariffs that benefit almost no one. Protectionism is usually explained as the result of special interests wielding disproportionate power. Trump’s tariffs against Chinese goods don’t fit this theory. And a theory that does explain them may not exist.
Jeffrey Frankel, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, previously served as a member of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers.