There are different ways to gauge the rise of protectionism. An obvious one is to count, as Global Trade Alert does, the number of measures adopted by various countries affecting competition from outside. Some 4,000 new barriers to trade have been adopted worldwide since 2008.
Another way is to look at the trend in political discourse in developed countries—and the response of the electorate. The effect that Bernie Sanders has had on Hillary Clinton’s views on trade in the current U.S. presidential campaign, and the fact that the most protectionist candidate, Donald Trump, obtained some fourteen million votes and 45 percent of the popular vote in the Republican primaries, tell us much about the shifting views on trade. Not to speak of the strength of the anti-globalizers in Europe, from Podemos, Syriza, and the 5-Star Movement in the south to the National Front in France, the People’s Party in Switzerland, and the True Finns in the north.
