From the folks over at the World Socialist Web Site (published, if you were wondering, by International Committee of the Fourth International):
While those promoting “free trade” speak for the bankers, financiers and more globally competitive sections of capital, there is a definite constituency for protectionism among less competitive industries. The whipping up of economic nationalism also serves a vital ideological function in diverting the anger of working people over job losses and the precipitous decline in living standards outwards rather than at the real source of the crisis—the profit system itself.
Not exactly the kind of defense for free trade I'd mount, but nowadays we need all the allies we can get.
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