Dani And Me, We Gonna Fuck You Up

I'll do a more complete post with my thoughts on trade policy later. For now, I'll just note that Dani Rodrik seems to share my distaste for per se rules:

Our professional training prepares us to be analysts who can make contingent statements. Policy A is good if conditions X, Y, and Z are in place. Rule-of-thumb economists sweep all the caveats under the rug, and in the end, are not true to their training.