It used to be that those watching us plunder ourselves with lobbyist-written trade agreements were cast aside and insulted by those Very.Serious.People in Washington.  They called us "protectionist" for questioning why our trade surplus turned into the biggest trade deficit in human history.  The political epithet was designed to cast us into the outer darkness, where there is only weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now folks like Sebastian Mallaby are gnashing their teeth.  Cognitive dissonance is excruciating for Mallaby - because the economic facts are hammering his ideology and it is so hard to keep rejecting the facts.  Mallaby is a wacko free trader that repetitively writes in the Washington Post, without evidence, the constant "all trade agreements are good and everyone else is misinformed" message. 

The Dem presidential candidates don't like NAFTA anymore.  Mallaby is really upset.  His ideology is crashing around him.  What is left?

Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have pushed trade populism beyond the point at which it can be easily forgiven.

Quite a lot of trade populism can be forgiven, even if it is intellectually dishonest. Like it or not, trade liberalization has stalled, so mild populism makes no practical difference. ... But it's one thing for Democrats to call for a timeout on negotiating new trade treaties and another to threaten violence to existing ones.

Intellectually dishonest.  Ha, ha.  The pot calls the kettle black.  And get this claim!

It's not that difficult to explain that U.S. manufacturing output has gone up, not down: It simply isn't true that production has been shifted en masse to Mexico or even China.

You can explain whatever you want Mr. Mallaby.  Proving it is a bit tougher.

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