Why Harris-Walz could be 'slightly more friendly' on trade issues than Biden-Harris

There are a number of areas where a potential Harris/Walz administration could differ from the current Biden/Harris administration. Trade is one.

Kamala Harris's record before she became Joe Biden's vice president — as well as how Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has approached these issues throughout his career — has at least some trade advocates wondering if there could be a new approach to the topic should Democrats prevail in November.

"It might be slightly more friendly to the trade outlook than the Biden administration," said trade expert Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in an interview this past week.

Donald Trump and Biden have offered an approach to issues like tariffs where both are pushing duties up. But the new candidate on the Democratic side and a lack of concrete positions from Harris herself "gives her a clean slate," Hufbauer added.

Vice President Harris has indeed largely focused on different issues in recent years.

In just one example, President Biden unveiled a sweeping array of new targeted tariffs in May on $18 billion in Chinese imports. Harris didn't join for the Rose Garden ceremony and was in New York that day, according to White House records.

Trump's trade agenda is largely unchanged, as he is promising historically high duties should he win , including a 60% tariff on imports from China and 10% on other US trading partners. He has taken to calling his plan one of putting a "ring around the country."

The overall race remains too close to call after a polling surge for Democrats since Harris's entering the race in recent weeks led to a largely tied contest.

A different perspective on tariffs from Walz

While the debate between Trump and Biden in recent years largely ended up being about how much to increase tariffs, Gov. Walz enters the race with a different perspective on the side effects of such a policy.

Walz represented a rural district in Congress and then was governor of agriculture-heavy Minnesota as Trump's tariffs went into effect. When China retaliated, that caused a loss of access to Chinese markets for many of Walz's agriculture-dependent voters.

In 2019, Walz highlighted how tariffs hurt farmers and said then-President Trump "needs to start doing his job and end the trade war with China."

And a 2018 Star Tribune Minnesota Poll conducted during Walz's successful run for governor found his state had very mixed views when it came to trade policy. A sizable number of Minnesotans, 46%, then said Trump's tariffs would raise the costs of goods and hurt the economy.

Walz has also traveled, as many governors do, to places like Japan, South Korea, and Canada to promote trade links.

"At a time of chaos and unrest in trade," Walz reportedly said in 2019, "our Japanese and South Korean partners are looking for solid relationships with states, and Minnesota in particular, that share their values."

It could bring a different approach to trade talks in 2025 if Walz is sworn in as vice president.

"I think that that background makes him a voice for maybe some liberalization," Hufbauer said.

Two candidates skeptical of past trade agreements

What both Harris and Walz also share is a record of skepticism of some free trade agreements in recent years, including the Obama-era Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.

Walz was one of the few Democrats to vote no in 2015 on giving then-President Barack Obama the authority to negotiate that agreement . Obama and then-Vice President Biden negotiated the pact which went into effect in the following years.

Harris didn't join Congress until 2017 but one of her votes in Congress was to vote no on the Trump-negotiated USMCA trade deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Both then-lawmakers cited the need for things like more workers and environmental protections as their reasons for opposition.

Walz also has decades of personal experience with China, which could be a factor. He taught English in China in 1989 and returned dozens of times since. He still reportedly speaks Mandarin and served in Congress on the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Walz said in a 2016 interview that the US relationship with China doesn't necessarily need to be "adversarial," but he has also put focus on the country's human rights record. He recently criticized China for siding with Russia in its Ukraine war.

For experts like Hufbauer, how it plays out in the coming months and into 2025 remains to be seen, but at the very least, he said, it could lead to a "debate."

Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.