If Joe Biden wins, Donald Trump's confrontationalism may give way to a more selective form that focuses on specific issues such as the environment, aims to protect American manufacturing, and targets real geopolitical competitors, "but the days of free trade are over."

This is what the writer Eduardo Campanella - a researcher at the Center for Change Management at the Spanish IE University in Madrid - said in an article for the American Foreign Policy magazine.

Biden - the writer adds - will need a strong majority in Congress to implement the ambitious financial and environmental agenda to rebuild America, but controlling the House of Representatives will not be enough.

Consequently, Biden, who limits his ability to pursue his broader agenda, will at least try to protect the American middle class from global economic turmoil through trade policy.

In short, whether Biden or President Trump prevail in the end, protectionism is here to stay.

Partial normalization of trade relations

Campanella said that 4 years in power allowed Trump to engineer the most surprising shift in US trade policy since World War II, indicating its departure from the rules-based trading system that Washington has established over the past seven decades.

He added that Biden's presidency would lead to a partial normalization of trade relations, indicating a return to a more multilateral and less transactional approach, and it would be foolish to expect him to shun Trump's protectionist legacy.

From the start, Biden made it clear that “economic security is national security.” In this context, domestic issues, and above all the renewal of the middle class and small American companies, have always been at the top of his agenda, especially amid the ongoing “Covid-19” pandemic.

It makes sense, then, for protectionism to infiltrate the Biden program, as his slogan "Made in America" ​​conceals hidden forms of protectionism aimed at promoting domestically produced goods and services.

For example, Biden envisions an investment of $ 400 billion in government purchases that exclusively target goods and services provided by US companies, in addition to the proposed carbon adjustment fees against countries that fail to meet their climate and environmental obligations.

Biden needs a strong majority in Congress to implement the ambitious financial and environmental agenda to rebuild America (Reuters)

Biden is hard to undo Trump's legacy

Even alongside efforts like this one that would actually enhance protectionism, there is a simple political fact that upon entering the White House, Biden will find it difficult to cancel Trump's protectionist measures or launch new free trade agreements, and although Biden blamed it on Trump's tariffs are hurting the US economy, but he will have to make a complex balancing act to lift them.

This is especially true when it comes to protection against China demanded by trade unions, who want jobs shielded from Chinese competition, and by farmers who want to regain access to the lucrative Chinese market.

In an effort to build a common front against China, Biden may raise tariffs on aluminum and steel produced by European companies. This may seem like a victory for free trade, but such a concession is likely to be conditional on NATO spending commitments, joint reform of the World Trade Organization, and reassurances regarding "5G" deals with Beijing.

Protecting American manufacturing

Finally, even if the political will exists to craft new trade agreements, it will take years to do so through normal processes even though Trump has only had the habit of declaring them.

According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, it takes a year and a half to negotiate a free trade agreement with the United States, and then more than three and a half years to reach the implementation stage, so it can take more complex and multilateral agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, from which it withdrew. Trump, nearly a decade ago.