Free trade remains the ideology of the age and protectionism the discarded evil. But in the real flesh and blood world of profit and loss bits of both, at one time or another, are essential human devices to organize trade most beneficially.
In the final analysis free trade is less an economic strategy than it is a moral doctrine. It assumes that the highest good is to shop. It assumes that progress is synonymous with increased economic activity. The exchange of material goods and capital takes precedence over the autonomy and sovereignty, and the culture,