I downloaded Arcgis pro 3.4 earlier this week and there seems to be an issue exporting maps to pdf. I have a setting for the basemap to export at 50% transparency and with this latest version of pro this setting in the pdf export is not coming through. The images have the basemap at full opacity. I hacked my way around this issue with a white polygon overlay but then now I have random layers that are turned on and in the legend but the features are not showing up in the pdf export.
I just tested this, as I updated Pro to 3.4 last week and already had a basemap at 35% transparency. The export worked as expected for me.
You said "I have a setting for the basemap to export at 50% transparency."
This is an interesting setting... may I ask how you achieved this?
I have the World Imagery basemap (tile layer, under effects) set to 35% transparency.
If you able to set your basemap tile layer to the designated transparency before exporting, you may be able to achieve your desired outcome. I'm not sure your reasoning to only adjust the transparency for exports, so this may not be ideal.