Didn't Republicans Formerly Believe in Free Trade?

While U.S. politics have witnessed any number of distressing trends in recent years, one of the more disturbing is the decline in support among Republicans for free trade. The rise of Donald Trump, who regularly blamed American economic ills on China and trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during the 2016 presidential campaign, is one obvious symptom of this development. Laura Ingraham's new book, Billionaire at the Barricades, and its relentless cheerleading for trade protectionism is perhaps another. Making the speculative argument that Trump is following a populist political trail first blazed by Ronald Reagan, Ingraham uses the book to catalog the alleged damage wrought by globalists and the trade liberalizing agreements they support.