In a 2019 presidential debate, Kamala Harris insisted, “I am not a protectionist Democrat.”
But Ms. Harris is not a pro-free trade Democrat either. She has said she would have opposed the 1992 North American Free Trade Agreement, which President Biden voted for during his tenure in the Senate, as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal supported by the Obama administration. And in 2020, she was one of only 10 senators to vote against the deal to replace NAFTA, the agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada.
As part of her quest for the presidential nomination, Harris' views on trade and economic issues are likely to take center stage. But unlike former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance, trade has never been a major focus for Harris, so her positions on trade issues are not fully known.
William A. Reinsch, Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Harris “a blank slate, but one that will most likely be filled with trade skepticism.”
That's partly because of her no vote on the USMCA, which Reinsch said “leads me to believe she belongs to the progressive wing of the party, which is skeptical of trade deals in general and those involving market access in particular.” But, Reinsch said, “there's not much to go by.”
Yet during her time as Senator for California and as Vice President, Ms Harris has consistently taken positions that suggest what trade policy might look like if she wins the White House. Her objections to trade deals have repeatedly centered on a common theme: their environmental impact and their lack of action to combat climate change.
Although the USMCA was negotiated by the Trump administration, it won over many Democrats because it included stronger protections for workers and the environment. But Harris concluded that the agreement's environmental provisions “are inadequate – and because the USMCA does not take climate change into account, it does not address the crises we are currently facing.”
Her skepticism about the Trans-Pacific Partnership was partly related to its environmental impact. In an interview, she expressed concerns that the partnership could undermine California's environmental laws. As a senator, Ms. Harris also supported the Green New Deal, a comprehensive package of measures to combat climate change.
This has led to speculation among trade experts that, if elected, Harris might use trade more as a tool to combat climate change – for example, by concluding more limited agreements that encourage trade in cleaner products and raise trade barriers for dirtier products.
“A Harris presidency would continue and build on Biden's trade policies,” said Todd Tucker, director of Roosevelt Forward, a progressive advocacy and research organization. “I would expect Harris to go even further than Biden in integrating trade and climate policies.”
Politicians have only recently turned to trade policy as a tool to combat climate change. So far, not much has been achieved in this area, but this approach is gaining support.
In negotiations with the European Union, the Biden administration pushed for trade measures that would encourage steel and aluminum producers in Europe and the U.S. to cut their carbon emissions. While those talks have stalled, they could serve as a model for further action under a Harris administration, trade analysts said.
Greta Peisch, a former trade representative in the Biden administration who is now a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein, said the Biden administration was close to pushing the United States to use trade tools to combat climate change. “With the Harris administration, that would be a trajectory they would be on as well,” she said.
Ms Peisch added that Ms Harris could also potentially push new policies that address how the United States should work with other countries to regulate digital trade. Ms Harris knows the technology industry from her time as California's governor, she said, and could help set the agenda for how technology issues such as artificial intelligence and privacy regulations factor into trade negotiations.
Both Republicans and Democrats have taken more protectionist stances on trade in recent years, moving away from a time when “free trade” was often a self-evident goal for many politicians. While the Trump administration imposed high tariffs on foreign products to gain influence and renegotiate trade deals, the Biden administration has rejected traditional free trade agreements and instead focused on domestic investment and other types of international partnerships.
Many Democrats now see free trade agreements as the reason American companies have moved jobs overseas – a view that is likely to persist under a new Democratic administration. Ms Harris has stressed that US trade policy must be recalibrated to prioritise the impact on American workers, rather than on large companies that prefer to save costs by outsourcing jobs.
She has also taken a more critical stance toward China in her appearances as vice president and in her voting behavior as a senator. And she has denounced the Trump administration's more aggressive and blanket approach to trading partners, calling the tariffs on China a tax on American consumers.
In a 2019 presidential debate, Ms Harris described Trump's trade policy toward China as erratic and full of boastfulness. “He reminds me of the guy from 'The Wizard of Oz,'” she said. “You know, when you pull back the curtain, there's a little guy.”
Biden was also critical of Trump's tariffs during the campaign. After taking office, however, the Biden administration ultimately decided to keep Trump's China tariffs in place and recently added some new ones, saying they were necessary to prevent cheap foreign products from flooding the United States and to protect new factories that receive federal funding.
Mr Trump has upped the ante in his current presidential campaign by proposing tariffs on most foreign goods and imposing a tariff of 60 percent or more on goods from China. The Biden administration has said that this level of tariffs could harm the US economy, widen the gap between rich and poor and trigger global trade wars that would hurt US exporters.
In her role as vice president, Harris participated in the administration's efforts to reduce supply chain dependence on China, including by promoting new partnerships for apparel manufacturing in Central America. She often took a hard line on China in speeches, and during two trips to Asia rebuked the country for its maritime conflicts with countries such as Japan and the Philippines.
As a senator, she condemned the persecution of Uighurs and minority women in western China and sponsored a bill by Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, that would impose sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses in the region. She was also one of the sponsors of Rubio's Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019, which was a response to China's increasing control over the former British territory.
“They are stealing our products, including our intellectual property,” Ms Harris said in a debate in 2019. “They are dumping inferior products into our economy. They must be held accountable. We must also work with China on climate and the related crisis.”