Is the protectionist bogeyman really coming?
First, while a protectionist backlash is a distinct possibility which I see as the main threat to sustained recovery, I recognize that countries like China and the United States are co-dependent and loath to permanently altering the status quo unilaterally. So while I condemn the recent tariffs imposed on Chinese tires, I recognize that the tariffs were imposed in the calculus that this issue would not or could not escalate. This is what James fallows argued in a post Wednesday: I keep putting this off, so before it finally disappears into the mists of time, here is a bullet-point summary of what I would have said at greater length when the Chinese tire tariff first arose. 1) There is not now, and there never was, a serious possibility that this would escalate into some sweeping, self-intensifying, global-recovery-threatening “trade war.” The many publications and commentators who raised their hands in “Oh no! It’s Smoot Hawley again!” horror need to calm down — and to have their tende
