We argue instead that populism must be understood as a specific political discourse, a way to articulate all kinds of policies – liberal or protectionist, left-wing or right-wing – as a clash between the virtuous, downtrodden “people” and an unresponsive corrupt “elite”. In this way, one can identify a consistent populist logic in how trade policies are presented regardless of the content of actual policies followed. In our analysis we show that, despite their very opposing trade preferences, the discourses of both protectionist Trump and strongly pro-free trade Conservative Brexiteers in the second half of the 2010s followed very similar articulatory modes flowing from their populism.
The populist logic behind Trump’s tariffs - LSE Blogs
