This 1998 John Travolta movie debunks Trump's tariff lies — "Primary Colors"
Trump says he can bring back manufacturing jobs; this is untrue, and Travolta called it 27 years ago.
If President Donald Trump is to be believed, his recent trade deal with China — achieved through his imposition of historically high tariffs — will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States.
Spoiler alert: Trump should not be believed. If Americans were more culturally literate, they would have already known this for more than a quarter-century.
You see, a terrible missed opportunity occurred 27 years ago. When “Primary Colors” was released in March 1998, critics and audiences alike focused on the movie’s sexual content rather than its substantive views on tariff policy.
This was predictable, of course. Even if “Primary Colors” hadn’t been released smack dab in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that nearly took down Bill Clinton’s presidency, sensationalism has always had broader appeal than intellectualism.
Yet as Trump demolishes America’s economy with exorbitant tariffs, I can’t help feeling frustrated that “Primary Colors” isn’t better known for its positions on tariff policy. There is one monologue by star John Travolta that, if it was as well-known today as other iconic movies scenes — think as famous as Marlon Brando’s “I shoulda been a contender” speech (“On the Waterfront”) and Heath Ledger’s “Why so serious?” soliloquy (“The Dark Knight”) — it might have spared millions of Americans today from being suckered by Trump’s economic snake oil of raising tariffs.
Based on the 1996 novel by journalist Joe Klein (who initially went by Anonymous), “Primary Colors” is a roman à clef about the 1992 presidential election. In that contest, Clinton overcame a series of scandalous revelations — most prominently among them multiple alleged martial infidelities — through dint of hard work, personal charisma, and overpowering eloquence. To illustrate how Clinton achieved this, Klein included a scene in his book that made its way into the movie. As directed by Mike Nichols, written by Elaine May and performed by Travolta, the scene directly rebuts Trump’s arguments in favor of high tariffs.
To be clear, Trump and his supporters advocate high tariffs in large part because they claim raising those rates will pressure business into creating American jobs and countries into negotiating better trade deals with the United States. In “Primary Colors,” Clinton analogue Jack Stanton addresses these arguments after a candid dialogue with his audience. He is speaking at a New Hampshire union hall.
“Here's the truth: No politician can reopen this factory or bring back the shipyard jobs or make your union strong again,” Stanton says. “No politician can make it be the way it used to be, because we're living in a new world now. A world without economic borders. A guy can push a button in New York and move a billion dollars to Tokyo in the blink of an eye. And in that world, muscle jobs go where muscle is cheap, and that is not here. So if you want to compete, you're gonna have to exercise a different set of muscles, the one between your ears.”
From there, Stanton promised with sincerity and detail to provide affordable lifetime education so that American workers can be trained for the jobs actually being created in this country.
To be clear, the low tariff policy supported by Stanton’s real-life counterpart Clinton had some very negative consequences. Free trade deals like NAFTA encouraged companies to export American jobs, while weak labor and environmental provisions worsened income inequality and ecological destruction all over the planet. Nevertheless, the Stanton/Clinton rebuttal to pro-tariff arguments like those made by Trump holds up. It echoes what Clinton himself said during the 1992 campaign, namely that “with Europe becoming more integrated, and maybe more closed, with Asia becoming more integrated, and maybe more closed, we have to have some markets. And that's why I hope we can get the right kind of agreement with Mexico.”
It also echoes with President John F. Kennedy, a hero to both Clinton and myself, said on the same subject in 1962 after passing the Trade Expansion Act, which implemented the largest tariff cuts in history (i.e., the Kennedy Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT). Kennedy at the time pointed out that “we cannot protect our economy by stagnating behind tariff walls.”
The economic realities of 1962 and 1992 remain just as true in 2025: No politician can bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States with high tariffs. The economy can only maximize its potential growth if people have access to both global markets and affordable goods. When I reached out to Klein to discuss the importance of this “Primary Colors” scene and its relevance to modern politics, he pointed out that he was not quoting Clinton but rather the fictional character Stanton.
“I was able to write my version of it,” Klein said. “I don't know where it, how much it truly reflects what Clinton believed, but it certainly reflects what Stanton believed, and what I believed and still believed.”
Klein went on to explain why the Democratic Party has a mixed relationship with the idea of low tariffs. Traditionally, Democrats have been a low tariff party, encompassing influential presidents from Andrew Jackson and Grover Cleveland to Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. At the same time, free trade policies can cost people their jobs, leading to understandable trepidation about free trade from labor unions.
“Politics runs in cycles,” Klein said. “The Democratic Party had always had a labor influenced left-wing that threw disproportionate weight, and Clinton got much of his funding, as did the DLC, from another wing of the Democratic Party, which was kind of socially liberal and economically conservative Wall Street people. They were against tariffs. They were very much in favor of free trade. And I remember that Clinton struggled with this, especially when it came to China.”
Klein then shared a story about talking to Clinton for Newsweek, where he worked at the time as a journalist. In 1993 the Beijing bureau chief left for Harvard University, so they needed a replacement. Klein volunteered and wound up spending a month in China. When he returned to the United States, Clinton wanted to talk to him.
“He asked me why I went, and I said, because I want to get away from him for a little bit, and also because [Ambassador] Dick Holbrook told me that China was the most important country in the world for the rest of our lives, an accurate statement it turned out,” Klein recalled. “He said, ‘Well, what are the three big things you learned there?’”
Klein ticked off three lessons:
“A billion people are living better than they ever have in human history” because of the opening of markets, creating a new middle class.
“‘You can never live there,’” I said to Clinton, “because he famously had terrible allergies.” He added “the only time you saw blue skies in Beijing were on Sundays when the factories west of the city shut down the air [because it] was impossible. It's gotten better, I understand. I haven't been there in a while.”
“The third thing is that 90% of the Chinese people make love with their clothes on. And he gave me a look, and I said, ‘Well, that's a housing issue. 90% of Chinese children live with their parents, and they have to sneak intimacy whenever they can.’ And he laughed.”
I included this anecdote because it reminds us of the human beings behind these otherwise-sterile economic policies. Trump depends on demonizing foreigners. Sometimes his criticisms are valid when it comes to economic policy. Importantly, Klein acknowledged that in the years since America has opened its trade relations with China, “the Chinese didn't play by the rules, [which] made characters like Donald Trump possible.”
Yet Trump is not making his criticisms in good faith. His success in whipping up pro-tariff sentiment reflects not on the strength of his arguments, but on the Democrats’ weaknesses on trade policy since the Clinton era. By failing to address the legitimate concerns of low-income Americans, trade policy became “one of the things that caused the working class to leave the Democratic Party,” Klein explained.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As Travolta’s “Primary Colors” monologue points out, you can show empathy for working class voters without lying to them about the possible solutions. When Trump romanticizes manufacturing jobs and promises to bring them back by making foreign goods more expensive, he is lying about what trade policy can realistically accomplish. Even worse, he is making it seem like creating manufacturing jobs is a desirable end unto itself. In fact the ultimate goal should be for people to have quality jobs, regardless of the industry.
For American workers to have good jobs and affordable goods, they need access to global markets and enough competition to force lower prices. That’s the truth. It’s a shame that the people who say it, like my fellow Jewish writers Klein/Nichols/May, don’t get as much attention as liars like Trump.
Back Seat Socialism
Column by Matthew Rozsa who is a professional journalist for more than 13 years. Currently he is writing a book for Beacon Press, "Neurosocialism," which argues that autistic people like the author struggle under capitalism, and explains how neurosocialism - the distinct anticapitalist perspective one develops by living as a neurodiverse individual - can be an important organizing principle for the left.