The US presidential campaign trail, and particularly the primaries, frequently witness a lot of ripe nonsense about trade and globalisation. Lectern-pounding candidates rail against the assault on manufacturing from unfair Chinese competition, and promise to bring jobs back home.
This time, the rhetoric has risen to the rafters, particularly on the Republican side. Donald Trump, confirming his positioning as a populist economist nationalist rather than a conservative or libertarian, has threatened the most hostile trade measures for decades, including heavy tariffs on imports from China and Mexico.
On a somewhat less dramatic scale in the Democratic primaries, the leftwing candidate Bernie Sanders has inveighed against trade deals, forcing Hillary Clinton to disavow the very Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement she spent years helping to negotiate as secretary of state.