2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Do you support the Free Trade policies that the Corporate Democrats are selling? [View all]pampango
(24,692 posts)more than the US does. Neither FDR nor Sweden were or are unprogressive. I agree with Bernie that we should be more like Sweden.
Prior to FDR, the US trade policy was essentially "Trump-like" - high tariffs, imposed unilaterally with ultimate national sovereignty over the process. We imposed tariffs and other trade penalties whenever we wanted, for whatever reason we wanted and against whomever we wanted.
FDR (a 'phony progressive' perhaps?) did not like that. First he lowered tariffs with dozens of bilateral trade deals. Then he went a step further and introduced the International Trade Organization - a concept (a multi-country trade organization that would govern trade rules rather than national governments doing it) that had not existed before.
You may not like the concept. That is fine. But that does not mean that it is conservative ideology. It means that liberals can disagree about some policies and still be liberals.