Why is the US turning to protectionism? - BBC News

Probably because a lot of people see their jobs being shipped overseas, they see the government making decisions they don't agree with, and they see terrorist groups spreading across Europe and fear the same will happen here. I don't think protectionism is the way to go, but it is a fear response based on their feeling that they are powerless in the current climate to have their voices heard or to affect meaningful changes.

Protectionism is a proven economic failure, predictibly resulting in higher prices for foreign and domestic products alike.

Free trade would be easier if all countries played by the same rules and we didn't have some of them manipulating their currencies in order to gain an unfair advantage over others. Take the metals industry for one. What percentage of the world's steel is supplied by China? How about aluminum, manganese, rare earth elements etc? China has a very large aluminum production capacity. The current price of aluminum is very low (below price of production in most cases). China does NOT have the world's cheapest to operate smelters. In fact on the overall cost curve they are quite high but their government subsidies them through "free" power, currency manipulation and policies to encourage defacto "dumping" into the world markets. Because they cannot dump pure aluminum at below costs they put in a half percent Magnesium and sell an "alloyed product" so many of the anti dumping rules will not apply. That is one way to get around the system. Look up current cases as well as some older ones for dumping of soft alloy aluminum extrusions. If you are interested. This is more than just an economic issue. It is becoming a national security issue. If we have no domestic supply of the various metals needed to make our weapons systems where does that leave us if we end up getting in a spat with China? Rare earths are used in all electronics. Look up what percentage of rare earths are produced in China. If this doesn't bother you it should...