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The Plum Line opinion

Morning Plum: Donald Trump is just getting started, Republicans

By Greg Sargent October 1 at 9:21 AM

I’m telling you, folks, if you think Donald Trump’s demagoguery on immigration has created problems for Republicans, just wait until he unveils his next act. If we get a Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, Trump may well roll out a whole new story about how Republicans and Democrats alike are conspiring with a shadowy cabal of international elites to help China and other foreign countries continue destroying the living standards of American workers.

It turns out Republicans are very worried about this.

The New York Times reports this morning that talks have resumed on the massive Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal. This is often cast as a divisive issue in the Democratic presidential primary, which it certainly could end up being. But as I’ve argued, it could also produce serious divisions in the GOP presidential primary. Though it has received surprisingly little attention, Trump has previously attacked the TPP, and the Times’ Jackie Calmes makes these crucial points:

Even if agreement is reached this week, Congress will not debate and vote on it until late winter — in the heat of the states’ presidential nominating contests — because by law Mr. Obama cannot sign the deal without giving lawmakers 90 days’ notice.

…it is the rhetoric of Mr. Trump, given his celebrity appeal, that has Republican leaders more worried that a toxic trade debate could threaten vulnerable Republicans in 2016.

The TPP may be debated in Congress precisely when the voting is fully underway in the GOP presidential primaries. And Republican leaders are worried that Trump’s rhetoric against “free trade” will create complications for the party’s Senate incumbents, who would presumably want to vote to pass the deal. But that’s not all: the TPP could also provide Trump with a weapon to wield against his GOP rivals. Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio support it. By contrast, Trump has railed against the TPP by warning that China will be given back-door access to the deal, further enabling China’s ongoing ripoff of American workers, and against international “free trade” deals in general by claiming we are being “defrauded” by other countries.

And in another signal, Trump gave an interview to John Harwood in which he claimed we are getting taken to the cleaners by a number of other countries, particularly China’s currency manipulation and tariffs. “Countries are taking advantage of us, big league,” Trump said. Thus, his attacks on the TPP could be seamlessly woven into the broader story that Trump is already telling, in which immigrants are to blame for the suffering of American workers. Trump can simply add international trade-negotiating elites, their enablers among the GOP presidential candidates and among Republicans and Democrats in Congress — and a new version of the Chinese menace, which he has been heartily bashing already — to the cast of villains. (There will be plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize the TPP; Trump will likely opt for a lurid and xenophobic tack.)

If Trump does go this route, it will be interesting to watch, because it will test the assumption that GOP primary voters (many of whom already appear to agree with the tale he’s telling about illegal immigrants) agree with GOP orthodoxy on “free trade.” As Ron Brownstein has explained, Trump has built a particularly firm foundation among blue collar Republican voters. And Ed Kilgore has noted that Rust Belt and southern conservatives tend to be alienated by internationalist free trade talk. Who will these voters listen to on the Trans Pacific Partnership — Jeb Bush, who is trying to talk in reasonable tones about the virtues of lowering international trade barriers, or billionaire Trump, who is warning that foreign elites are looking to rip off American workers even more than they have done already?