In Trump 2.0, ‘Free Trade’ Republicans Are a Dying Breed

This week, a Republican senator tried to get his colleagues to stand up for free trade—and failed.

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New organizations have sprung up to challenge the old conservative consensus and provide intellectual firepower to the populist right. Chief among them is American Compass, a five-year-old think tank headed by Oren Cass, a onetime domestic-policy director for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign who has emerged as perhaps the pre-eminent voice in favor of right-wing protectionism in policy circles. In a flurry of op-eds and media appearances, Cass has passionately argued for the fundamental virtue of tariffs and protectionism overall, though he takes issue with some aspects of their implementation.

Compass recently moved from a cramped office in a converted Capitol Hill yoga studio to a suite in a downtown townhouse and launched an online magazine. Its white papers and congressional briefings have helped to spread the gospel among members of Congress and their staffs, and numerous allies have made their way into the administration, from Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Steve Miran, chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Compass’s foundational idea is that the old GOP doctrine of tax cuts and small government—what some on the New Right refer to as “zombie Reaganism”—is out of date and that the state should play a role in ensuring families at all income levels can thrive. The organization has come under relentless attack from old-line conservative institutions such as Americans for Tax Reform and Americans for Prosperity for its heresies, but its influence is clearly ascendant.

“From a worker-focused perspective, free trade can be wonderful, but it has to be balanced. What you’re seeing on the right of center is the result of a decade of evolution,” Cass said.