Goodbye, Free Trade; Hello, Mercantilism

To be used in future. This particular piece is biased and presents things after butchering their context. Can't be sure whether it is popular enough to write a critic.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/81372

Here's today's quiz. What do the following have in common: (a) Vladimir Putin; (b) China's currency, the renminbi; (c) the U.S.-Perutrade agreement; (d) Hugo Chávez. Answer: they all reflect the "new mercantilism." It's a significant and ominous development affecting the world economy. Even as countries become more economically interdependent, they're also growing more nationalistic. They're adopting policies intended to advance their own economic and political interests at other countries' expense. As practiced until the mid-19th century, mercantilism aimed to do just that.