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By Shikha Dalmia

At his recent confirmation hearing, Tim Geithner—Barack Obama's Treasury Secretary—pulled out his saber and rattled it at China's alleged currency-manipulating ways, testimony to the stiff protectionist headwind in the U.S. right now. But the real test of whether President Obama will resist the wind or blow with it will come when he decides what to do about America's three-year-old quota against Chinese textiles that expired Dec. 31.

Protectionism is exactly the wrong remedy for a global economic slump—as the 1930 Smoot Hawley tariffs amply demonstrated. Historians widely credit the tariffs—and the global trade war they unleashed—for...  full article