The Biggest Losers in Trump's Potential Trade War
If Donald Trump’s aggressive moves on the international economy spark a trade war, the American communities that will lose the most in absolute terms are the giant metropolitan areas, largely along the two coasts, that are most deeply integrated into global markets.
But in proportional terms, the biggest losers from a trade war would be small and midsized cities, almost entirely in interior states, that are heavily dependent on exports of manufacturing goods or energy products.
That distinction between the communities with the greatest absolute and proportional stake in access to global markets emerges from an important analysis of exports’ role in local economies that was released Monday by the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.
That contrast frames the political risk of
