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Populism gained force as an organized movement in the 1890s in the American Midwest and its prairie states, the nation's breadbasket, which were then suffering an agricultural depression due to competing imports of grain from Europe among other factors. This led to calls for protectionist measures, including tariffs, against foreign agricultural products.
Fast forward a hundred years to when the Midwest had become the home for many of America's industries, such as cars and steel, before they started to buckle due to competition from Asian producers, including Korea.
So Trump is resorting to the same populist playbook the existed more than a century ago when he threatens, for example, to curb the Korean car imports on grounds of national security and accelerate a trade war with China.
An historical irony, however, is the Midwest farmers who once supported grain tariffs in the 1890s are now opposed to Trump's protectionist measures because they know that the resulting trade wars are likely to hurt the export of their crops overseas, which has become a major income source for them.
Economic discontent also breeds anti-elitist attitudes. The Midwest farmers of the 1890s blamed their troubles not only on foreign imports, but on bankers, railroad owners and their East Coast political allies who they claim were using their powerful positions to squeeze profits from struggling farms and small businesses.
Trump has tapped this into the same sort of resentment against elites when he calls for "draining the swamp" in Washington or attacks the "fake news" of the New York-based mainstream media. This plays into traditional American suspicions about big capital and big government that allegedly ignore the interests of the little man.
Another facet of populist outrage has been attacks on immigrants despite America's reputation for being the "great melting pot." Immigrants have long been viewed by many Americans as being job stealers, criminals or revolutionaries who sought to bring unwelcome change to traditional ways of life. In the 19th century, each wave of ethnic immigrants was subject to abuse ― first the Irish and then the Germans, Italians, Eastern European Jews and the Chinese. The latest wave of immigrants who have been targeted by Trump are Latinos mainly from Mexico and Central America ("murderers and rapists") and Muslims ("terrorists").
Distrust of immigrants has also led to isolationism, which was the prominent theme of U.S. foreign policy until 1945. Opposition to America getting involved in World War I and World War II was particularly strong in the Midwest.
Trump is returning to this historical default position in U.S. foreign policy by claiming that American allies, including Korea, Japan and Europe, are "taking the U.S. for a ride" by not paying their fair share in defense spending as he threatens to pull U.S. troops from these regions as well as from Afghanistan.
Support for Trump's isolationist policy is strongest among the working class, which is the main source of military manpower. One study after the 2016 presidential election showed that districts that suffered the highest rates of casualties in the Iraqi and Afghan wars voted heavily for Trump.
What underlies Trump's populist appeal is the language he uses to describe threats to "Americanism" from a variety of sources, some foreign and some domestic such as minority groups. This plays particularly well with an aging, less educated white population, mainly in the Midwest, who believe that the 1950s represented America's golden age and that everything has been downhill since then.
The irony is that Trump's claims to "Make America Great Again" comes at a time when the American economy is booming and the U.S. remains by far the strongest military power in the world.
The populist movement of the 1890s, when the U.S. was in the middle of a long depression, lost steam at the turn of the 20th century when a generation of progressive politicians came to power to correct some of the abuses of the corporate system and sought to narrow a wide gap in income inequality. The same thing could happen to Trump populism if progressive Democratic politicians are elected in the next few years and address some of the same issues that plagued Americans in the 1890s. In the meantime, Korea is likely to pay a price for the surge in American populism when it comes to trade and defense.
John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.
