How To Fight Anti-Trade Populism

Yes, trade is being scapegoated for other problems, but Washington must provide remedies for workers hurt by trade and automation

In this interview with Fred Bergsten, he and I discuss how to fight the anti-trade populism that brought Donald Trump to power. The essay begins: In a new report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, G-7 [Group of Seven countries] Economic Cooperation in the Trump Era, Peterson founder C. Fred Bergsten wrote that, “The backlash against globalization represents the central, perhaps existential, threat facing the . It could reverse seventy years of painstaking efforts to create an open and cooperative world economy, with unforeseeable but potentially disastrous consequences.” In response, Bergsten proposed that, “The G-7 should make an effort to establish consensus around a cooperative (and possibly coordinated) program of ‘Supporting the [American/British/Canadian/ French…] Worker’ that responds to concerns raised about the impact of globalization on labor.”