Taking Issue with Dani Rodrik: Trade Deficits are Different with Secular Stagnation (see Addendum)

I am a big fan of Dani Rodrik's writings on trade, and I agree with most of what he says in his NYT column today, but I do have one major disagreement. However, before going there let me emphasize some of the key points he makes in the piece.

First, Rodrik is very much on the mark in arguing that recent trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, have very little to do with free trade. As he says, these deals are about imposing a corporate-friendly structure of regulations on both our tr...