In the English language the word "Protection" sounds warm and friendly. Everyone needs protection against the storms of life and it is nice to give protection and be protected. But lift this innocent word into the international sphere and it becomes a sinister and ominous concept, a harbinger of narrow selfishness, conflict and impoverishment.
At present it is a word being heard increasingly on the world stage. The virus of protectionism, like the virus of swine fever, is spreading fast through the global economy, and taking new and more dangerous forms.
Trade protection used to mean just raising tariffs, or imposing quotas on imports on certain goods from certain sources. The lessons of the great slump of the 1930s were thought to have taught people that raising protectionist barriers of this type ruined everybody. In the postwar period, international institutions and procedures were set up to maintain free trade, of which today's World Trade Organization is the heir and successor.