How would South Carolina's foreign-based industries fare under Trump’s trade policies?

Donald Trump’s tough talk on trade – vowing to rip up international trade deals and stand up against foreign cheating to bring jobs back to Americans – has helped propel him toward the Republican nomination.

But in South Carolina, a state that has heavily leveraged globalization and foreign investment into jobs, some analysts say the state’s economy could be harmed if residents focus too much on bringing back jobs lost to other countries.

“I think there’s a bit of a nostalgia sometimes for the jobs the state used to rely on,” said University of South Carolina economics professor William Hauk, explaining how the state “was hammered” a few decades ago by losses to the textile industry.

“But many haven’t noticed that lots of new jobs are benefiting the state,” he said.

Like the rest of the country, South Carolina has lost blue-collar jobs in recent years. But the state has benefited more than almost any other state from foreign investment. U.S. subsidiaries of global companies are writing paychecks for 8 percent of South Carolina’s private sector workforce – the highest in the country – and providing 127,300 jobs, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Focusing on creating jobs, including through direct foreign investment and free trade, would do more for the state than Trump’s protectionist policies, some analysts say.

The old jobs “are never coming back. If (these jobs) are not in China or Mexico they'll be somewhere else soon,” said University of South Carolina economics professor John McDermott. “It’s an era that is gone for good, so we’ve got to compete in the global marketplace and South Carolina has done a really great job at it.”

In the past five years, South Carolina’s employment from foreign direct investment has gone up by 13.4 percent, with more than half of those jobs in the manufacturing sector.

“I think we can absolutely go too far in being protectionist, because it’s so easy to see jobs that are lost to Mexico and China and harder to see the jobs that are gained and insourced to South Carolina through foreign companies like Volvo or Continental Tire,” McDermott said.

Volvo is building a auto manufacturing plant in Berkeley County and Continental Tires of Germany is expanding its Sumter plant to double its production capacity over six years and to add about 900 workers.

In 2014 alone, 1,233 international firms from 42 countries invested $5.1 billion in the Palmetto State. German automaker BMW announced a billion-dollar investment in its Upstate plant in March, and Volvo selected South Carolina for its first American factory last year, investing $500 million in a facility in Berkeley County that will create 2,500 jobs.

Similarly, international trade is crucial to South Carolina’s economy, supporting one in five jobs in the state in 2013.

“We’re punching quite above our weight in terms of export,” Hauk said. “Obviously someone like Donald Trump is not worried so much about that, but more about protecting jobs from import trade. However trade is a two-way street, and if you make it harder to import, you make it harder to export.”

China, which has been Trump’s main target, is South Carolina’s top destination for exports with nearly $4.3 billion in 2015, according to the S.C. Commerce Department.

There also are 85,763 jobs in the state that are dependent on trade with Mexico, Trump’s second most-talked-about foreign trade villain, centering on plastics and rubber products, chemicals and machinery, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

A Moody’s report in June said that Trump’s declared 45 percent tariff on goods from China and a 35 percent tariff on goods from Mexico would have a negative impact on the U.S. economy that could be comparable to the Great Recession.

“Broadly, Mr. Trump’s economic proposals will result in a more isolated U.S. economy,” the report says. “Cross-border trade and immigration will be significantly diminished, and with less trade and immigration, foreign direct investment will also be reduced.”

Trump’s campaign did not return request for comment on the possible impact of protectionist trade policies on foreign investment.

Vera Bergengruen: 202-383-6036, @verambergen

This story was originally published July 11, 2016 at 5:45 PM.