IN 1929 Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot, two protectionist Republicans in Congress, sponsored a bill to raise tariffs. During that economic turmoil, the protectionists won, and the bill was passed. Not surprisingly, there was a round of reciprocal tariff hikes in other countries, and a disastrous collapse in international trade.

Most of the “Buy American” nonsense was removed from the U.S. economic stimulus bill, but only after it had been put in in the first place. Now President Sarkozy has promised to bail out France's car industry if it pledges to keep jobs in France. One must hope that the EU’s Commission for Competition can prevent the EU from falling into that trap.

Economic nationalism seems to rear its ugly head whenever the good times stop rolling.