Among the many aspects of President Trump's attempt to reverse decades of "free trade" policy, which was a cynical label used to disguise the deliberate hollowing out of American manufacturing, one of the most important has been scarcely remarked.

Critics of Trump's efforts to correct that disastrous policy delight in mocking his new direction as "protectionist," as if that were automatically a bad thing. Yet even the most avid advocates of so-called "free trade" have supported selective protectionism. Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804), the most "free trade" oriented of the Founding Fathers, wrote of the benefits of protecting "infant industries." The idea was to shield certain industries from foreign competition until they could gain their footing and grow strong enough to compete globally. Those being protected were American workers, the same group Trump is now trying to benefit.

Fast forward to today's "free traitors." Who were they protecting? It was not American workers. Instead, they made sure that governmentally-imposed conditions of trade such as extremely low tariffs and few non-tariff barriers would engineer their supply chains to be as frictionless as possible. Those sourcing chains were anchored by foreign manufacturing platforms. So who was being protected? It was foreign workers, not Americans.

It is high time we recognize who deserves whatever protections our government establishes. That is American workers.

The author was the Co-Chair with the late Roger Milliken of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC).

Image: Currier & Ives