Not an economist so not going to give you my musing on that... ain't worth a lot.
But I will give you this stream of consciousness...
Free Trade is about streamlining the international system, and pre 1960s there was a hell of a lot of false economy going on and that cost real money. Strip these away and you get efficiency = wealth. In free Trade some people win and some loss, but we all win more...on average.
Moving to the now....keep in mind that Risk (read, the unknown) is a huge cost to business. Free Trade is moving towards trying to regulate what governments can do, Standardizing economic policy externally, and moving towards internally. To mitigate a nations ability to do whatever it wants. Nationalizing utilities on a whim is a good example.
Again, no expert, but my belief is this is fundamental driven by the UN agenda for lessening the gap between rich and poor, both nationally and internationally. A good example is the UNs move towards the addition of a 4th variable to the Human Development Index. Equality.
And remember what you measure is what you get. Equality is becoming hardwired into the system. Is this a bad thing?
The theory is that equality, much like free trade, moves towards peace and prosperity and away from economic warfare, which is often the precursor to kinetic warfare.
However, if you believe in the Judeo / Christian western exceptional-ism...and frankly I do...I don't know if I really want a super level playing field, internally or nationally.
As is often the case, it comes down to degrees, where is the sweet spot for when the rich are too rich, but not rich enough, and the poor are to poor but not poor enough.
And the more I'm involved with this the more I come back to the issue I have with the Economic liberal, and boy the UN is. Life is often about choosing the lesser of two evils, not holding out for the perfect and ending up loosing both options. It seems to me liberals struggle with this.
The international movement towards socialism, risks removing the one true "GOVERNOR", natural cause and effect - screw around in life you are generally poor, engage in life, you will generally thrive.
"Men must be GOVERNED by God (read, law of nature) or they will be ruled by tyrants." - William Penn.
The big picture here, is the post modern humanist thinks he can do a better job then the laws of nature, the law of consequence. So we are moving towards swapping the law of consequence (nature), for the law of man.
We so hate the law of cause and effect, which isn't perfect (there in lays the issue), that we are swamping this lesser evil, for a greater evil, in the hope it will be more perfect. We forget the law of diminishing returns.
But hey what do I know.
S