Dani Rodrik, in the context of the EU trade commissioner criticizing Hillary Clinton, wonders why free-traders engage in fear mongering.

“Why is it,” asks the Harvard economist Rodrik, “that anyone who says that the gains from the next trade agreement are not huge, that there are real social and distributional issues we need to confront before we strike the next trade deal, and that perhaps we need to rethink the basis of the multilateral trade regime in light of the severe legitimacy problems which it has run into—all true propositions — is immediately branded as a protectionist who wants to set the clock back?”

“No respectable economic model suggests the completion of Doha will add more than 1 percent to world GDP some ten years out — and this under the most favorable circumstances,” writes Rodrik. “The mental model that people like [Peter] Mandelson seem to have is that the moment you take a breather on trade agreements, the whole world trade regime will collapse.”