Trump and the Return of American Economic Nationalism

How the nineteenth-century battle between free trade and protectionism shaped the global economic order.

By Marc-William Palen, July 30, 2016 | http://www.theglobalist.com/trump-and-the-return-of-american-economic-nationalism/

Credit: The 'Conspiracy' of Free Trade: The Anglo-American Struggle over Empire and Economic Globalisation, 1846-1896 by Marc-William Palen (Cambridge University Press, Feb 9, 2016)

Takeaways

• Protectionism, the political economic choice throughout the world history, is again in fashion.
• A protectionist shift is no radical departure for the United States. It’s a return to the status quo.
• The international turn to trade liberalization since the WWII represents the exception to protectionist rule.
• Republicans of yesteryear, like Trump now, sought to protect industries from foreign competition.
• Old GOP leaders said free-traders were agents of a vast British conspiracy to undermine America.