Free Trade or Protectionism: Issue of Strategic Choice

... openness of their domestic markets. Of note is the critique of free trade in works by Erik S. Reinert and J. Stiglitz, which extends an ongoing discussion since the beginning of trade policy debates. In the academic literature, views on the advantages of protectionism versus free trade have been in constant flux. Long before Reinert or Stiglitz, mercantilists argued for the need to rely on protectionism, highlighting trade protection policies exclusively in terms of the need to accumulate domestic resources....