Open Letter:
Over 350 Economists Oppose Trump Campaign

Note: Institutions are listed for identification purposes and should not be viewed as signatories to the letter.

We, the undersigned economists, strongly urge voters not to choose Donald Trump.

There are many reasons not to vote for him that do not require trust in experts, such as the dire warnings of those who served in his first administration:

• His former VP does not support his re-election and claims that he was forced to choose between Trump and the constitution on January 6th.

• His former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff claims he is "fascist to the core."

• His former secretary of defense, who opposes his re-election, claims he repeatedly tried to deploy the military against American citizens in his first term.

• His former chief of staff claims he is a fascist who "prefers the dictator approach to government."

The guardrails of democracy don't have to hold, almost didn't in his first term, and may not in a second.

If we elect someone who tries to end democracy at every turn, as Trump did after losing the 2020 election, it really could end, just as it has in other countries.

Most voters seem to understand this. Some, however, are open to rolling the dice on a second Trump term, perhaps out of economic anxiety, even though they harbor deep reservations.

As argued below, we don't find the economic arguments for a second Trump term to be compelling and hope to persuade these voters to reconsider:

• While trade does affect employment, it is not primarily responsible for the steady decline in manufacturing's share of employment since the 1950s. This pre-dates NAFTA's ratification, and China's development and accession to the WTO.
  
  This long term trend is driven primarily by automation in manufacturing and growth in service sector employment. It has many of the same characteristics as the preceding transition away from agricultural employment. It is also common among high income countries, including those with balanced trade and heavy exporters of manufactured goods.
  
  Imposing tariffs may insulate certain campaign donors from competition, but it won't stop them from replacing manufacturing workers with robots.

• A large share of the impact of his proposed tariffs will fall on consumers in the form of higher prices. This is the consensus position of the economics profession, most recently verified in a poll conducted by the Clark Center for Global Markets.
  
  Just as Mexico didn't pay for a wall in his first term, China will not pay for Trump's tariffs if he's given a second term. You will. 

• The disproportionate focus on manufacturing employment leaves more than 90% of American workers out of the core of Trump's economic agenda.
  
  Non-manufacturing workers also lose jobs, sometimes need to change careers, and deserve equal consideration.
  
  Furthermore, those in the manufacturing sector are unlikely to reap benefits from Trump's economic agenda in the long run. It cannot protect manufacturing jobs from automation and does not offer a safety net or a realistic path forward for those who must transition out of the sector.

• Attempts to reduce trade deficits and increase manufacturing employment with the same policy tools didn't work in his first term.
  
  Manufacturing's employment share hovered at around 8%, decreasing slightly; the trade deficit increased; and the bilateral trade deficit with Mexico increased in the years after his NAFTA replacement went into effect.
  
  Pulling the wrong policy levers harder, with more severe consequences for workers and consumers, is unlikely to yield better results.

• Despite Trump's claims to the contrary, economic performance during his first term in office was unremarkable.
  
  If we exclude the pandemic to give his tenure a more charitable assessment, GDP growth and non-farm payroll employment growth look like a continuation of Obama's second term, which was a "disaster" according to Trump's evaluation.
  
  If we include the pandemic to give a less charitable assessment, employment growth was negative over Trump's first term.
  
  If Trump has the unique ability to achieve exceptional rates of growth, as he has frequently claimed, he doesn't appear to have used it in his first term, even prior to the pandemic.

The core of Trump's economic agenda rests on a misdiagnosis of the economy. Just as taxing imported vegetables won't reverse the mechanization of agriculture, imposing tariffs on manufacturing won't turn back the clock on automation.

Workers who are struggling in the manufacturing sector and elsewhere would be better served by a president who is willing to engage with reality, rather than one who constructs elaborate fantasy worlds filled with enemies around every corner.

In closing, we return to the protection of democracy and pose a question to the reader: If Trump had succeeded in blocking the election's certification on January 6th, would the United States be a democracy today? 

If you can't answer "yes" without hesitation, that is the only reason you need not to vote for him.

Let's never give him a chance to do something like that again.

Don't vote for Trump.

Signed,

Joelle Abramowitz, University of Michigan

Dilip Abreu, New York University

Jason Abrevaya, The University of Texas at Austin

Richard Adelstein, Wesleyan University

Anat R. Admati, Stanford University

Stefania Albanesi, University of Miami

Randy Albelda, University of Massachusetts Boston

Jim Albrecht, Georgetown University

Hunt Allcott, Stanford University

Treb Allen, Dartmouth College

Hassan Youssef Aly, Ohio State University

Nurul Aman, University of Massachusetts Boston

David Anderson, Centre College

Robert M. Anderson, UC Berkeley

James E. Anderson, Boston College

Donald W K Andrews, Yale University

Andres Aradillas-Lopez, Pennsylvania State University

Ken Ardon, Salem State University

David Aske, University of Northern Colorado

Susan L. Averett, Lafayette College

Bruce Alan Babcock, UC Riverside

M. V. Lee Badgett, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Laurence Ball, Johns Hopkins University

Edmund Balsdon, San Diego State University

William F. Barnes, University of Portland

William A. Barnett, University of Kansas

Christopher B. Barrett, Cornell University

Janis Barry, Fordham University

Christopher F Baum, Boston College

Liz Bayley, University of Delaware

Neal Becker, Portland State University

Jere Behrman, Univ of Pennsylvania

Alan Benson, University of Minnesota

Dirk Bergemann, Yale University

Ted Bergstrom, University of California Santa Barbara

Dan Bernhardt, University of Illinois

Arielle Bernhardt, New York University

Marianne Bertrand, University of Chicago

David Besanko, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Michael Carlos Best, Columbia University

Syon Bhanot, Swarthmore College

Joydeep Bhattacharya, Iowa State University

Sugato Bhattacharyya, University of Michigan

MC Binz-Scharf, City University of New York

Alberto Bisin, New York University

Emily Blanchard, Dartmouth College, Tuck School

Robert A. Blecker, American University

Jesse Blocher, Vanderbilt University

Barry Bluestone, Northeastern University

Ernest Boffy-Ramirez, University of Denver

Philip Bond, University of Washington

Nathan Sivers Boyce, Willamette University

Austin Boyle, Pennsylvania State University

Ralph Bradburd, Williams College, Emeritus Professor

Elizabeth Brainerd, Brandeis University

Elissa Braunstein, Colorado State University

Erin Bronchetti, Swarthmore College

David S. Brookshire, University of New Mexico

Derek Brown, Washington University in St. Louis

Kasey Buckles, University of Notre Dame

Benjamin Bushong, Michigan State University

John Y. Campbell, Harvard University

Gerard Caprio, Williams College

Susan Boslego Carter, University of California, Riverside

Cedric Ceulemans, SUNY at Purchase College

David A. Chapman, University of Virginia

Kalyan Chatterjee, The Pennsylvania State University

David Chavanne, Connecticut College

Yu-chin Chen, University of Washington

Joyce J. Chen, The Ohio State University

Howard Chernick, Professor Emeritus, City University of New York

Rachel G. Childers, Presbyterian College

Carmel Ullman Chiswick, George Washington University

Barry R. Chiswick, George Washington University

Kimberly Christensen, Sarah Lawrence College

Christopher M. Clapp, University of Chicago

Tim Classen, Loyola University Chicago

Dennis Coates, UMBC

Benjamin J. Cohen, University of California Santa Barbara

Sarah Cohodes, University of Michigan

Matthew T. Cole, California Polytechnic State University

William S. Comanor, UCLA

Jonathan Conning, Hunter College, CUNY

Karen Smith Conway, University of New Hampshire

Philip J. Cook, Duke University

Colin Corbett, Bradley University

Hope Corman, Rider University

Arnold R. Cowan, Iowa State University

David Cutler, Harvard University

Betty C Daniel, University at Albany

Andrew Daughety, Vanderbilt University

Lucas Davis, UC Berkeley

Prabal De, The City College of New York

Charles de Bartolome, Emeritus Professor University of Colorado

J. Bradford DeLong, UC Berkeley

Tatyana Deryugina, University of Illinois

Jerome Detemple, Boston University

James DeVault, Lafayette College

Ranjit S. Dighe, State University of New York at Oswego

Rebecca Dizon-Ross, University of Chicago

Matthias Doepke, Northwestern University and London School of Economics

Itamar Drechsler, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

Steven N. Durlauf, University of Chicago

Prajit Dutta, Columbia University

Pierre H. duVair, California State University, Sacramento

Eva Dziadula, University of Notre Dame

Robert Neal Eberhart, Stanford University

Nina Eichacker, University of Rhode Island

Adem Elveren, Fitchburg State University

Jeff Ely, Northwestern University

Dennis Epple, Carnegie Mellon University

Can Erbil, Boston College

Stephen Erfle, Dickinson College

Keith M Ericson, Boston University, Questrom School of Business

David E. Ervin, Portland State University

Hadi Salehi Esfahani, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Jose-Antonio Espin-Sanchez, Yale University

David Fairris, University of California, Riverside

Roger Feldman, University of Minnesota

William D. Ferguson, Grinnell College

Raquel Fernandez, NYU

A. Nilesh Fernando, University of Notre Dame

Alexander J. Field, Santa Clara University

Gary Fields, Cornell University

Irene R. Foster, The George Washington University

Johanna Francis, Dept of Economics, Fordham University

Michael J. Fratantuono, Emeritus Professor Dickinson College

Harold O. Fried, Union College

Leora Friedberg, University of Virginia

Willa Friedman, University of Houston

David W. Galenson, University of Chicago

John Luke Gallup, Portland State University

Stefania Garetto, Boston University

Laura K. Gee, Tufts University

Garance Genicot, Georgetown University

Jamshed Ghandhi, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Fabio Ghironi, University of Washington

Thomas Gilbert, University of Washington

Claudia Goldin, Harvard University

Gloria Gonzalez-Rivera, University of California Riverside

Glenn G. Graham, State University of New York - Oswego

Theresa Greaney, University of Hawaii

Brett S. Green, Washington University in St. Louis

Matthew Greenblatt, The College of New Jersey

Daniel Greenwald, NYU

Avner Greif, Stanford University

Erica L. Groshen, Cornell University

Michael Grossman, CUNY Graduate Center

Gene M. Grossman, Princeton University

Wayne Grove, Le Moyne College

Theodore Groves, UCSD

Michael Grubb, Boston College

Martin J Gruber, NYU

Danilo Guaitoli, New York University

Jakina Debnam Guzman, Amherst College

Philip Haile, Yale University

Thomas Hall, Christopher Newport University

Bronwyn H. Hall, UC Berkeley

Winthrop P. Hambley, American University

Daniel S. Hamermesh, University of Texas at Austin

Ben Handel, Berkeley

Bruce E Hansen, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tarek Alexander Hassan, Boston University

Jonathan Haughton, Suffolk University

Carolyn J. Heinrich, Vanderbilt University

Steven Helfand, University of California, Riverside

Marc Henry, Penn State

Ralf Hepp, Fordham University

Benjamin E. Hermalin, UC Berkeley

Elaine L Hill, University of Rochester

Andrew Hobbs, University of San Francisco

Derek Horstmeyer, George Mason University

Yasheng Huang, MIT Sloan School of Management

Isaiah Hull, Economist

Jennifer Hunt, Rutgers University

Matt Hyle, Winona State University

Barry W. Ickes, The Pennsylvania State University

Yannis Ioannides, Tufts University

Sarah Jacobson, Williams College

Eric Jacquier, Boston University

George Jakubson, Cornell University

Elizabeth J Jensen, Hamilton College

Michael Jerison, University at Albany, SUNY

Priyaranjan Jha, University of California, Irvine

Derek C. Jones, Hamilton College

Eli Joseph, NYU

Joseph P. Joyce, Wellesley College

Theodore Joyce, Baruch College & NBER

Joseph E. Harrington, Jr., University of Pennsylvania

John H. Kagel, Ohio State University

Linda Kamad, Santa Clara University

Emir Kamenica, University of Chicago

Barbara G. Katz, New York University

Mark Kazarosian, Stonehill College

Donald Keim, Wharton, University of Pennsylvania

Hoi, Chun Keung, Rochester Institute of Technology

Michael Kevane, Santa Clara University

Mary C King, Portland State University

Sharmila King, University of the Pacific

Jennifer Klein, University of Colorado Boulder

Charles D. Kolstad, Stanford University

Jerzy Konieczny, Wilfrid Laurier University

Oleg Korenok, Virginia Commonwealth University

Samuel Kortum, Yale University

Lidia Kosenkova, University of Virginia

Evan Kraft, American University

Laurence Kranich, University at Albany

Mark Kuperberg, Swarthmore College

Ken Kuttner, Williams College

Farrokh Langdana, Rutgers Business School

Matthew F. Larsen, Lafayette College

Ronald Lee, University of California, Berkeley

Michael A. Leeds, Temple University

Henry M. Levin, Stanford University and Columbia University

Phillip Levine, Wellesley College

David I. Levine, University of California, Berkeley

Arthur Lewbel, Boston College

Shanjun Li, Cornell University

Marc Lieberman, New York University

George Loginov, Augustana University

Erzo F.P. Luttmer, Dartmouth College

Thomas P. Lyon, University of Michigan

Victor Lyonnet, University of Michigan

Jeffrey Macher, Georgetown University (McDonough School of Business)

Sara Adler Mandelbaum, Western Governors University

Victoria Marone, UT Austin

Keith E Maskus, University of Colorado Boulder

Adrian Masters, University at Albany, SUNY

Thomas Masterson, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross

Timothy McBride, Washington University in St. Louis

Ted McConnell, University of Maryland

Elaine McCrate, University of Vermont

Topher McDougal, University of San Diego

Peter McHenry, William & Mary

Douglas McKee, Cornell University

Ellen Meara, Harvard University

Costas Meghir, Yale University

Marc Melitz, Harvard University

Paul L Menchik, Michigan State University

Guido Menzio, NYU

Gilbert E. Metcalf, Department of Economics, Tufts University

Andrew Metrick, Yale University

Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn, UCLA

Keaton Miller, University of Oregon

Pooya Molavi, Northwestern University

Peter Montiel, Williams College

Alan Moreira, University of Rochester

Enrico Moretti, UC Berkeley

Stephen Morris, M.I.T.

Petra Moser, NYU

Akira Motomura, Stonehill College

Marc-Andreas Muendler, UC San Diego

Peter Mueser, University of Missouri

Lalith Munasinghe, Barnard College, Columbia University

Bob Murphy, Boston College

Roger Myerson, University of Chicago

Dariia Mykhailyshyna, University of Bologna

Steven Nafziger, Williams College

Thomas Nechyba, Duke University

Julie A. Nelson, University of Massachusetts Boston

Noelwah R. Netusil, Reed College

Stephen A. O'Connell, Swarthmore College

Brendan O'Flaherty, Columbia University

Ezra Oberfield, Cornell

David Ortega, Michigan State University

Professor Emeritus James A. Papke, Purdue University

Leslie E. Papke, Michigan State University

Andrii Parkhomenko, University of Southern California

David G. Pearce, New York University

Jeffrey M. Perloff, University of California, Berkeley

Isabelle Perrigne, Rice University

Michael Peters, Yale University

Karen Pfeifer, Smith College Emerita

Paul Pfleiderer, Stanford University

Robert F. Phillips, George Washington University

Gordon M. Phillips, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

Anne M Piehl, Rutgers University

Luigi Pistaferri, Stanford University

Michael Powell, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Elizabeth T. Powers, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Gyan Pradhan, Christopher Newport University

Thomas A. Pugel, NYU Stern School of Business

William Pyle, Middlebury College

Joseph Quinn, Boston College

James R.Tybout, Pennsylvania State University

Debraj Ray, New York University

Steven Raymar, Fordham University, Gabelli School of Business

Robert Rebelein, Vassar College

James Rebitzer, Boston University

Sanjay Reddy, The New School for Social Research

Nancy Reichman, Rutgers University

Jennifer F. Reinganum, Vanderbilt University

Philip Reny, University of Chicago

Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, Amherst College

Thomas Rice, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health

Michael J Roberts, University of Hawaii

Andres Rodriguez-Clare, University of California, Berkeley

Andrew K Rose, UC Berkeley-Haas

Joshua L. Rosenbloom, Iowa State University

Maya Rossin-Slater, Stanford University

Elyce Rotella, University of Michigan

Philip Rothman, East Carolina University

Heather Royer, University of California-Santa Barbara

Christopher J. Ruhm, University of Virginia

Mark Rush, University of Florida

Henry Saffer, Graduate Center CUNY

Bernard Salanie, Columbia University

William Samuelson, Boston University, Questrom School of Business

Todd Sandler, University of Texas at Dallas

Marcello Sartarelli, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Daniel Schaefer, JK University Linz

Jose A. Scheinkman, Columbia University

Markus P. A. Schneider, University of Denver

Roberto Serrano, Brown University

Alan Finkelstein Shapiro, Tufts University

Vali, Shapoor, Fordham University

Ian Sheldon, Ohio State University

Ashish Shenoy, University of California, Davis

Ali Shourideh, Carnegie Mellon University

Gilbert Skillman, Wesleyan University

Timothy Smeeding, University of Wisconsin

Lones Smith, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Joel Sobel, UCSD

Gary Solon, University of Michigan

John Sorrentino, Temple University

Stephen Spear, Carnegie Mellon University

Charles P. Staelin, Smith College

J. Farley Ordovensky Staniec, University of the Pacific

Roberto Steri, University of Luxembourg

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University

Samuel Stolper, University of Michigan

Daniel F. Stone, Bowdoin College

Diana Strassmann, Rice University, emeritus

Scott Sumner, Bentley University

Constantinos Syropoulos, Drexel University

Mariano Teisl, University of Maine

Chris Tilly, UCLA

Jeremy Tobacman, University of Delaware

Aron Tobias, Syracuse University

Daniel Tortorice, College of the Holy Cross

Edward Tower, Duke University

Scott Trees, Siena College

Stephen J Turnovsky, University of Washington

Christopher Udry, Northwestern University

Veysel Ulusoy, Boston College

Laura Veldkamp, Columbia Business School

Eric Verhoogen, Columbia University

Mike Veseth, Professor Emeritus, University of Puget Sound

Emanuel Vespa, UCSD

Rajiv Vohra, Brown University

Susan Vroman, Georgetown University

Quang Vuong, NYU

Paul Wachtel, New York University, Stern School of Business

Andreas Waldkirch, Colby College

Carl Walsh, University of California, Santa Cruz

David N. Weil, Brown University

Marek Weretka, UW Madison

Nils Wernerfelt, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Roger White, Whittier College

Anne Williams, Bates College

Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, Michigan State University

Linus Yamane, Pitzer College

Gary Yohe, Wesleyan University

Andrew Zimbalist, Smith College

Joshua Graff Zivin, University of California, San Diego

Ben Zweig, NYU Stern