Centrist Politicians Don’t Get That Immigration Is Like Trade
Stressing the economic benefits while ignoring the costs was not a winning electoral strategy in 2024.
At the risk of being reductive, there are two reasons centrist political parties lost power last year while others face a reckoning in 2025. The first is inflation: Incumbents were blamed—not entirely fairly—for a global price surge that had more to do with a once-in-a-century pandemic than their own policy missteps. The second, immigration, looks like more of an unforced error.
Here are the numbers. In the US, where Donald Trump made the border with Mexico a top election issue, the foreign-born share of the population rose to more than 14% in 2023, from less than 5% in 1970. In Canada, it has climbed to 23%. Coincidentally, that’s roughly in line with the dwindling share of the population that approves of soon-to-be-ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s performance.