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 contrast frames the political risk of Trump’s flurry of moves to raise barriers against imports and withdraw from U.S.-led efforts to open markets around the world—for instance, abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement across Asia and demanding a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. CONT.
Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic