On taxes, Trump’s big operating losses provide a useful microcosm of how the tax system is rigged, if you can call an almost billion dollar claim against future tax liabilities in 1995 “micro.”
On trade, here’s what a “smart, fair” agenda looks like to me.
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I would object to the central premise of reforming trade. The truth is that we have an opportunity to reject globalization, not reshape it. American workers can not compete with workers who are not free, who don’t have labor rights. Wages in China and India and many other countries are not going to approach those of the U.S. any time soon. The artificially high dollar keep trade with Germany and Japan off balance too. What globalization actually does aside from enriching our 1% is support foreign regimes who deprive their workers wages that approach developed countries. An export led economy deprives workers leverage, the economy grows without domestic consumers enriching the rich. Enlightened workers come to the U.S. causing not just a brain drain, but an escape valve for and liberal democratic movement, anti-corruption and economic reform are bled dry.
The country can and should begin a campaign to raise the price of goods produced with labor that is not free.
I wish you could boil down your sensible views on trade into a slogan or two, or a short paragraphs and a chart– information that voters can understand with very little effort. E.g. “Genuine free trade, Yes! Trade with worker protections, Yes! Trade with protections for corporations, No!”