The Broken Promises of Free Trade

President Trump needs to return America to its original and authentic conservative economic policy: the American System of protective tariffs. President Ronald Reagan built the most successful political coalition in modern American history. His juggernaut—an alliance of social conservatives, neoconservatives, and economic liberals—routed the Democrats. Reagan won over 90 percent of the electoral college in 1980, and a staggering 97 percent in 1984. Capital-R Republicans have smugly celebrated this triumph ever since. In fact, Reagan’s Coalition was so successful that uniting these disparate interests became Republican doctrine. Any who dared question this political logic—or perhaps, as Patrick Buchanan correctly pointed...