Jeff Ferry here in USA Today says free traders can't explain China's success because their free trade ideology blinds them to how protectionism has made China great:
China has been eating America’s lunch for a quarter-century. And they’ve done it by following exactly the strategy that pundits and free traders now suggest will be destructive to the US economy. ... Unless Washington stands up to China now, the trajectory of the past 25 years points to a troubling, continued decline for America’s working families. And so, for those who suggest that tariffs are a mistake, they need merely look at China’s rise for an instructive rethink.
