I expect we're going to see more of this over the next 5-10 years, especially in the digital economy. In the 70s, where a country was protectionist about cars,

I expect we're going to see more of this over the next 5-10 years, especially in the digital economy. In the 70s, where a country was protectionist about cars, that probably meant fewer, worse and more expensive cars. Same for steel, dishwashing soap, telephones and shoes. Trabants instead of Toyotas, and less of them. Protectionism came with a high efficiency cost, and that meant poverty. Today's digital economy can be very different. The relationship between incoming revenue and outgoing expenses is often arbitrary and that means efficiency is squishy. If Toyota had to operate on half it's current budget, Toyota would produce half as many cars. If Facebook had to operate on half (or less) of it's current budget, they "produce" the same social media (or advertising) "product." The cost of protectionism in this environment is totally different to steel, cars and ikea furniture. If Facebook and twitter cease to exist, the "supply" of social media experienced by the public isn't a problem... at least not for long. An ecommerce business is not a social media business, but it is further along that spectrum. So is a smartphone business, financial services business, online ad platform and many of these "digital monopoly" sectors. The protectionist proposition is just more attractive, with the big, immediate, obvious costs removed. Protectionism has always been popular, politically. It's nationalistic, and that's popular with the public. It puts a lot of policy making power in politicians hands and that's popular with politicians. Business tends to like it, domestically. Opening trade was, imo, and contrary to popular opinion, a forced hand. It was never ideological. Ideologically, it's unpopular. The "stable state" is protectionism. Protectionism was just very costly in the 70s, 80s & 90s... so it died down some.