From populism to mercantilism, there is only one step

It is not international trade that impoverishes peoples, but its instrumentalization by political power, when it is used to conceal its responsibilities and failures. ...

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, writes that the mercantilists propose the accumulation of precious metals and, to that end, impose trade policy measures and, in general, economic policy so that they affect the trade balance, thus artificially making the volume of exports much greater than that of imports.This artifice, Smith describes it as protectionist, interventionist and regulatory fallacies, which have their origin in the desires of c…