#”Who do you think will win this year’s U.S. presidential election?”
The US presidential election (November 5) is one month away. After the twists and turns of an unprecedented candidate change, Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Commala Harris faced off against Republican candidate former President Donald Trump. Although it was several years ago, I worked as a US correspondent and people around me often ask me my opinion on the results of the US presidential election.
Although it is a 50% probability, with my shallow knowledge of American politics and short experience in the United States, I do not have the talent or confidence to guess the name of the ’47th President of the United States’ who will be born in exactly one month.
The actual opinion polls are also extremely close. The two are back-and-forth in approval ratings in seven battleground states that will determine the outcome of the presidential election. It seems that the goddess of victory has no intention of smiling at either side easily yet.
Still, whenever the U.S. presidential election approaches, an experience that I previously mentioned in a column comes to mind. The time was late 2018. Contrary to expectations, two years had passed since Trump, an outsider in American politics, defeated Hillary Clinton and entered the White House. The whole world suffered from Trump’s confusion.
At the time, I was fortunate enough to have a New Year’s interview with Jonathan Haidt, a world-renowned social psychologist and professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, after two years of courtship. He is the author of ‘Anxious Generation’ (How the Digital World Makes Our Children Sick), which recently became a bestseller at home and abroad.
As expected, Professor Hite harshly criticized Trump, calling him a “disaster president.” He criticized, “Trump is a person who has no interest in morality or global issues,” and “Trump is exploiting and worsening polarization (in American society and politics). He is escalating global conflict.”
He, who had been raising his voice for ‘anti-Trumpism’, suddenly said that there is one thing Trump is good at. “Trump is handling China properly,” he said. He praised Trump, who was obsessed with hitting China with tariffs while shouting ‘Make America Great Again’.
For a moment, it felt like I had been hit with a hammer. First of all, it was because of the stereotype that if you don’t like the opposing camp or a specific politician, you will just hate everything from one to ten, regardless of logic or anything else. Also, the vague expectation that American intellectuals would be somewhat aloof when it comes to national interests was also wrong.
It was only then that I was able to clearly understand why the majority of American economic experts, whether progressive or conservative, supported Trump’s hard-line stance against China, even though there were differences of opinion on the methodology of trade tariffs.
#The core economic and trade policies of Harris and Trump, who are competing in the presidential election, are ‘America First’ and ‘Bashing China’. Although the methodology is somewhat different, the goal of restoring American manufacturing and creating jobs is the same.
Let’s look at Trump’s remarks. “If you vote for Trump, you will witness a massive exodus of manufacturing from China to Pennsylvania, from South Korea to North Carolina, from Germany to Georgia.” Trump still puts forward Trump-like promises, such as enacting the ‘Trump Mutual Trade Act’, which imposes the same tariffs on countries that impose tariffs on the United States, and applying tariffs of more than 60% to China.
Harris is no different. “Maintaining America’s ability to produce American steel for American workers is of the utmost importance.” Biden’s ‘Semiconductor Act’ and ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ (IRA) are the top policies that Harris will inherit. In short, if you want to do business in the U.S. market, you must produce in the U.S., hire Americans, and use American raw materials.
When the time comes for the US presidential election, we are always busy calculating whether it is advantageous for us to win among the Democratic or Republican candidates. However, if we only look at the economic and trade policies that will have the greatest impact on those of us who make a living through exports, comparisons between the two candidates are actually meaningless. In one word, it’s doggingagin.
Therefore, from our perspective, what we should pay attention to in this year’s US presidential election is the perspective of ‘Harris or Trump’ rather than ‘Harris or Trump’. In other words, we must keep in mind that when it comes to America’s national interests, there are neither Democrats nor Republicans, nor progressives nor conservatives. From what perspective are our government and the ruling and opposition parties preparing for the imminent change of power in the United States?
