Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Republicans Rejected Free Trade for No Good Reason

Many Americans may be frustrated with economic and cultural change, but they are not protectionists.

November 29, 2018 at 2:00 PM UTC

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

The risks of protectionism seem obvious to many Americans. — The risks of protectionism seem obvious to many Americans.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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Donald Trump’s election in 2016 was taken as clear evidence that Americans were fed up with globalization. Though elites and economists supported free trade, the silent majority of Americans, left to live with its effects, did not. Protectionist sentiment was resurgent. Economic nationalism and “America First” have since become the order of the day, the consequences of a bottom-up reaction from the people.

The problem with this new conventional wisdom about trade is that it may be wrong, according to a new study based on polling data from a variety of organizations.