Free trade as idealized by those who successfully pushed in recent decades is a very good thing. It binds nations together making us all better off and less likely to go to war. It raises productivity as nations do what they are good etc. etc. etc. But even those who pushed free trade like Bill Clinton and Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong have admitted that it create losers. Academic and corporate pundits admitted there were downsides but little was done about it.
And so Trump could run against bad trade deals and demagogue immigrants and foreigners. Corporate free trade did not lead to rising living standards and a better world. It is here where the usual liberals blame Republicans and whitewash the actual arguments.
In order to work a Green New Deal will need to raise the living standards of everyone and make economic justice a reality. That's what the "New Deal" part is. That's what globalized trade didn't have. It was paired with reducing the welfare state and labor rights. If you want the Green New Deal to work and to evolve to a sustainable economy that will allow human civilization to survive that means no doing what was done with free trade. It means creating a new kind of economy that works for everyone while weening us from fossil fuels and stopping climate change.
This means government will have a large role to play.
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