One of the greatest sources of economic disruption in 20th century America was the embrace of “free trade” policies. In the process of remaking the GOP, MAGA populism reversed the party’s polarity on globalism and free trade.

The populism that powered Trump’s ascendance is a reactionary force. A reactionary favors a return to an earlier state of society, a “status quo ante” that included cultural and economic conditions that no longer exist. Progressives see white nationalism as the guiding hand behind MAGA reactionaries, but economic issues may provide a greater impetus.

Free trade initiatives gained significant momentum during the Reagan Administration. In 1988, Reagan signed the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. In 1994, this morphed into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) when Mexico joined. In 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) commenced operations.

American free trade initiatives reached their apex during the Clinton Administration. Clinton signed NAFTA, and orchestrated the addition of China to the WTO in 2001. The latter decision arguably did more to disrupt America’s manufacturing economy than any other policy.

The WTO is the largest international economic organization in the world, with 164 member states that represent 98% of global GDP. It is perhaps best understood as the mercantile stepsister of the UN.

WTO trade agreements cover goods, services, and intellectual property. They spell out supposedly universal principles for liberalization, and a set of permitted exceptions. They include individual countries’ commitments to lower customs tariffs and other trade barriers, and to open services markets. They also set procedures for settling disputes, including binding arbitration and the use of WTO courts.

There are several dirty little secrets about the WTO’s trade regime. First, with enough political soft power, WTO enforcement mechanisms can be subverted. China has invested massive amounts of soft power in dominating global institutions like the WTO.

Second, the WTO has few objective tools for quantifying subsidies provided by member states to their commercial champions. The burden of proving that your competitors are illegally subsidizing their industrial champions falls on each member state, and on the judgment of a politically tainted WTO judicial system.

WTO rules also generally require reciprocity with respect to crossborder investments. China routinely blocks entire industries from foreign investment. In other cases it allows foreign investment only if investors place their intellectual property (IP) in a China-domiciled joint venture. Many US companies have embraced the joint venture option only to watch their IP be copied by an ostensibly “independent” Chinese competitor.

Since 2001 the umbilical lines of America’s supply chain dependency on China have multiplied like economic kudzu. Chinese products have displaced domestics in virtually every industry. This avalanche of disruption has been aided and abetted by our politicians, economists, and corporate leaders.

Most economists have been midwives to the globalization effort, suggesting unfettered trade provides the greatest good for the largest number of stakeholders. It is true that during China’s WTO membership, some 500,000 Chinese have emerged from poverty. While this supports economic arguments for free trade intellectually, it does nothing to assuage the experiences of rural and manufacturing communities in the US.

As New York Times columnist Peter Coy noted, economists typically deliver a three-point rationale for open trade. First, it increases prosperity by allowing each country to specialize in what it’s best at. Second, they acknowledge that not everyone wins. Some jobs are displaced by cheap imports. Third, they argue that displacement can be readily solved if winners share gains with the losers.

That point is problematic. In reality, the beneficiaries of globalism tend to be politically privileged – and thus don’t share their gains. Financial services companies are some of the biggest beneficiaries of globalization. But BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and their ilk have done nothing to revitalize communities in America’s rust belt and former textile towns.

Economists have suggested specific policies to aid those impacted by free trade. However, such programs have a checkered history. In 1962 JFK sold tariff reductions to Congress by including “trade adjustment assistance” to help people whose jobs were wiped out by imports. No TAA requests were even approved until 1969.

Sohrab Ahmari of The American Conservative recently argued that the “American carnage” Trump railed against at his 2017 Inaugural was the direct product of economic governance that promoted global free trade despite its demonstrably corrosive impact. The symptoms include: stagnant wages; pervasive health and job insecurity; the disappearance of America’s industrial base; ruthless labor, tax and regulatory arbitrage by corporations, in the form of offshoring and open borders; the corollary decline in union power in the private economy; and the subsequent ravages of opioids in marginalized communities.

If the “rules based order” of the WTO and similar globalist institutions can be readily suborned and deceived by authoritarian regimes like China, it no longer matters that free trade is a tide that theoretically raises all boats. Oneoff tariffs will not solve this conundrum, but free trade advocates owe us more practical tools to ensure equitable outcomes for American workers.