Let me illustrate: My consulting company does business in China, and when we do, we (out of self-interest, since we don't speak Chinese and it's hard to do log

Let me illustrate: My consulting company does business in China, and when we do, we (out of self-interest, since we don't speak Chinese and it's hard to do logistics without that) partner with Chinese companies. My company has some of the leading experts in a very niche thing. In the current state, the companies we partner with get to learn from us and gain expertise. The alternative if protectionist policies stop us from doing business in China isn't for those people to become experts on their own -- that's not possible. The alternative is for them either not to gain expertise at all or to have to get it in a more difficult and expensive way. Protectionism can benefit a fledgling industry (not a whole country) in the short term in a limited set of cases (at the expense of dragging down the rest of the economy), but in most cases the protected industry is going to fall behind even more without the information transfer that comes from business leaders doing business there.