How to Combat Populist Demagogues
We will never know whether greater honesty on the part of mainstream politicians and technocrats would have spared us the rise of nativist demagogues like Donald Trump in the US or Marine Le Pen in France. What is clear is that lack of candor in the past has come at a steep price.
CAMBRIDGE – At a recent conference I attended, I was seated next to a prominent American trade policy expert. We began to talk about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which President Donald Trump has blamed for American workers’ woes and is trying to renegotiate. “I never thought NAFTA was a big deal,” the economist said.