<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Nope</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-could-become-a-free-trade-counterweight-to-trump-1531911601?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 16px; color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-could-become-a-free-trade-counterweight-to-trump-1531911601?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1</a><br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 20pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Democrats Could Become a Free-Trade Counterweight to Trump</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">By Greg Ip </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">July 18, 2018</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">In Tennessee’s critical Senate race, it’s the Democrat running as a free trader. Phil Bredesen, a former governor, poses in a whiskey distillery in a recent ad and slams President Donald Trump’s tariffs: “They hurt our auto industry, our farmers, and Tennessee exports like Jack Daniel’s.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">Since the 1940s, the Republicans have been the party of free trade, Democrats the party of protection. Those labels need updating. Mr. Trump’s imposition of tariffs on allies and adversaries alike is accelerating a migration of Democratic voters toward free trade and Republicans away from it. Among elected legislators, the median Republican is still pro-free trade and the median Democrat a skeptic, but those lines, too, are shifting.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">That has potentially significant consequences if Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections. They could become a counterweight to Mr. Trump’s protectionist agenda.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">The shift was on display last week, when the Senate voted on a proposal by Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker to require Mr. Trump to consult Congress when invoking national security to impose tariffs, as he did with steel and aluminum. All Democrats voted in favor; only 78% of Republicans did.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">In an interview, Mr. Corker said Republicans who voted no were worried about contradicting the president; theirs, he said, is still the party of free trade. But, he added, a lot of Republicans noticed that Mr. Bredesen, who is campaigning to replace the retiring Mr. Corker, is so forcefully backing trade. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, this fellow is a pretty smart, he’s supporting free trade, he must know something politically.’ This is an issue that cuts across political factions.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">Democrats historically opposed free trade because they relied heavily on union votes and power. But in the 2000s blue-collar industrial-region workers began shifting to the Republican party while college-educated urban and suburban voters increasingly voted Democratic. Today, 67% of voters who identify as Democrats or lean Democratic consider free trade a good thing, according to the Pew Research Center; just 43% of Republicans do.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution has found that coastal urban centers that provide the bulk of Democratic votes have benefited most from globalization, whether free trade, foreign investment, or immigration.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">The divide is also cultural: Democrats increasingly identify with cosmopolitan values like openness to trade, immigration and culture. For some, Mr. Trump’s dislike of free trade only makes it more appealing.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">Free trade has yet to convert the bulk of elected Democrats, especially those in traditional rust-belt regions. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), a longtime skeptic of free trade, has allied himself with Mr. Trump on tariffs and stopped a tougher version of Mr. Corker’s proposal from getting a vote. Conor Lamb wrested a Pittsburgh-area district away from Republicans in a special election in part by endorsing Mr. Trump’s steel tariffs.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">And the party’s rising progressive left instinctively equates trade deals with giveaways to corporations and the rich. In 2016 Hillary Clinton recanted her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious 12-nation trade pact, under pressure from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), a self-described democratic socialist.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">So Democrats aren’t going to make trade the centerpiece of their efforts to retake the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate this fall. Global trade ranks last among voters’ priorities.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">But Ed Gerwin, a trade expert at the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist think tank aligned with Democrats, says trade is local and the fallout from Mr. Trump’s tariffs has given Democrats opportunities they didn’t have five years ago: “If you are running in a farm district in California’s central valley, Kansas or Nebraska or a suburban district like Houston or Dallas, this is a message that really resonates.”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">The president’s disdain for longstanding trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization and his willingness to treat adversaries like China and allies like Canada alike has alarmed even protectionist members of the Democratic caucus, like Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett. “Terminating or repealing [Nafta] will have far-reaching consequences in Texas,” he warned last fall.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 12.75pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 20.25pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class="">All this means that a Democratic-controlled Congress, traditionally hostile territory for free-trade legislation, may be friendlier now. Democrats may see countering tariffs and protecting trade pacts as politically useful not for its own sake but as a way of constraining Mr. Trump.</span></p></div></body></html>