Chicago Daily Observer

Obama’s 17-strong board is old, protectionist, filled with lawyers and too few serious economists. Plus they are the face of past failures.

Protectionists David Bonior, Jennifer M. Granholm (both Michigan politicians), Antonio Villaraigosa and Robert Reich are all ‘fair traders’, that is, rabid protectionists. Laura Tyson has long been a crypto-protectionist and Larry Summers has stepped repeatedly over the boundary between legitimate critiques of certain extravagant claims concerning the joys of globalisation and simple trade protectionism. Read More...

Obama’s losses in Ohio and Texas may have been due to the fact that the American electorate does not like its presidential candidates to speak with a too obviously forked tongue

If Jagdish Bhagwati’s purpose in writing his FT column on March 3, Obama’s free-trade credentials top Clinton’s, was to cheer up those who support multilateral free trade and had become dismayed at the avalanche of protectionist drivel from both the Obama and the Clinton camps, he failed.

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