Trump overlooks many solutions to US manufacturing issues

Donald Trump rose to power in part by pledging to rewrite unpopular trade deals that have shipped jobs overseas and hurt American workers, particularly in the Midwest, for years.

As president, he has continued to focus on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and imposing new tariffs on foreign goods, taking credit for the recent growth in manufacturing jobs nationwide.

But the truth is that the nascent economic recovery in the heartland is in spite of Trump’s policies, not because of them. By framing trade deals as the principal source of America’s industrial decline — and thus the key ingredient for its renewal — Trump has diverted attention away from the other disastrous policies.

As he has railed against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), he quietly proposed to cut critical federal programs supporting ...

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