US Trade Policy, President Trump and the KORUS FTA

President Trump criticized the KORUS FTA and in 2018 South Korea and the United States renegotiated the KORUS. What explains Trump’s antipathy? Why has he departed so radically from prior US free trade policy? I answer these questions by making four arguments. First, President Trump’s protectionism is a surprising reversal given the range of US interests, institutions, and ideology supporting free trade. Second, while conceding that economic interests of low-skilled workers interacted with the electoral mechanisms of democracy to facilitate Trump’s anti-KORUS position, I argue that the most important explanation is Trump’s personal economic ideology. Third, trade policy during the Trump presidency is explained by the extent to which President Trump’s cabinet has—or has not—been able to constrain his personal protectionist instincts. Fourth, the institutional process of renegotiating the KORUS FTA further constrained Trump’s protectionism.