Actually, all protectionists. The drumbeats in the U.S. just get louder, and the arguments of free trade advocates are not even heard.

This fun rant comes courtesy of the Boston Globe:

WE HAVE already seen the devastating effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement in Massachusetts. According to conservative estimates, more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the last decade alone. Nationally, at least 3 million jobs have been sent offshore, and the wage gap continues to expand.

Count the atrocities.

Gee, let’s see. We have 100,000 manufacturing jobs lost in 10 years. That’s 10,000 a year. I wonder how many new jobs Massachusetts has seen in the past 10 years? In what sectors? Any of ‘em related to trade? I guess we aren’t supposed to ask that.

Three million jobs "sent offshore" - no time period stated. Sounds bad, no idea what it means to send a job offshore. Again, no attempt to talk about the benefits of trade in all of this, both in terms of job gains as well as consumer welfare.

Expansion of wage gap. Someone gets sacked from GM and has to take a job at McDonald’s. Yeah, I get it. Sometimes it involves competition from foreign trade, sometimes not.

Do these folks ever analyze the consumer benefits of free trade and attempt to figure out what would happen if the U.S. really adopted protectionist policies? Do they stop and think that there are global economic forces at work here that we are dealing with, and that crawling into a hole and pretending they don’t exist will not solve any of the problems?

Instead of railing against NAFTA, why don’t they lobby for education reform, displaced worker retraining, better unemployment benefits, health care . . . need I go on?

Did I mention that this stuff makes me very cranky?