anti-trade groups as strange bedfellows of Trump

In this comment for Borderlex I analyze a development, which has not yet been noticed very much, namely, the fact that Trump has strange bedfellows from the left-wing anti-trade groups.

Since US President Trump took office he has completely reversed the US trade policy from multilateralism to protectionism.

He has pulled out the US from TPP and wants to re-negotiate NAFTA on his terms and if that fails may terminate NAFTA too.

The perplexing thing is that his antui-trade aversion meets the anti-trade aversion of many left-wing anti-trade groups in Europe.

That is a disturbing fact, which is ironically also fuelled by the European Commission and European Parliament which support many anti-trade NGOs.

The question is whether this protectionism is not actually going to backfire on the European economy.