Current debates over trade policy illuminate both the premises of American foreign policy in the aftermath of the Second World War and the way that high neoliberalism might be in tension with it. While in some ways continuous with the preceding project of global engagement, the policies of the post-1989 (and especially post-2001) era might actually undermine the architecture of the “liberal international order.”

This was a key context for Josh Hawley’s May speech that called for the U.S. to exit the World Trade Organization. The Missouri senator was not demanding a return to isolationism. Instead he praised the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the 1947 pact that helped establish an infrastructure for multilateral trading agreements. He also argued for the continuing importance of global trade. Hawley’s critique of the WTO was less about the virtues (or vices) of global trade itself and more about geopolitics: at this present moment, certain transnational institutions serve neither the national interest nor the project of sustaining democratic governance.

As Hawley noted, the exigencies of the Cold War played a major role in the construction of the global trading order after the Second World War. While many American policymakers might have celebrated the virtues of “free trade,” they also saw trade agreements as a vehicle for helping to solidify an alliance to contain the Soviet Union. Mutual access to national economic markets could, they hoped, be a way of reducing possible geopolitical conflict within the anti-Soviet alliance. Favorable access to the American market could encourage cooperation with American leadership. And, of course, many American corporations had hopes of export opportunities in other countries.

However, American policymakers during this period were not doctrinaire free-traders. Trade was subordinated to broader geopolitical aims, especially regarding the Soviet Union. The United States maintained Smoot-Hawley-level tariffs on Soviet products until the mid-1970s (and continued many tariffs after then, too). It also restricted the export of many industrial products to the USSR. America sought to ensure that the commanding functionaries of the Soviet Union would have minimal leverage over its own economic activity and that the Soviets would not be able to make use of key American technologies. More broadly, policymakers supported a number of measures to ensure the continued vitality and industrial capacity of the American economy.

The establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995 was part of a broader movement toward the bureaucratic formalization of postwar efforts. The WTO had a more expansive mandate than its GATT predecessor, and a more powerful bureaucracy to manage global trade. This powerful transnational bureaucracy has now elicited criticism from Senator Hawley and others.

The entrance of the People’s Republic of China into the WTO in 2001 caused significant national and global economic turbulence. Many observers hoped that the admission would cause China to liberalize, and some—like George W. Bush—even predicted that it would reduce the American-Chinese trade deficit. Instead, the trade deficit exploded, and “China shock” rattled many American communities. Far from embracing some American model of liberalization, the Communist Party of China has trumpeted its vision of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” across the globe. A recent analysis from the Lowy Institute found that entrance into the WTO has allowed the PRC to become a more important trading partner for countries across the globe, often displacing the United States. The close trading relationship between the United States and the PRC has also given the Communist Party of China the increased ability to intervene in American politics. For instance, a New York Times analysis found that the Chinese government had calibrated its trade retaliations to inflict particular harm on Republican-held districts in the lead-up to the 2018 midterms.

These trends have assailed the foundations of multilateral institutions. The success of the “liberal” order relies on deeper social and political infrastructures, which neoliberal policy too often disregards. Along with a sense of diminished sovereign control, economic dislocation has stoked the fires of bitter outsider politics on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, annual real economic growth dropped by half during the 2001 to 2015 period, long before Donald Trump took his famous ride down the golden escalator. The Great Recession—fueled in part by the financialization that has characterized the neoliberal period—helped ignite various populist movements and delivered a body blow to global trade. Trade as a percentage of world GDP peaked in 2008.

One of the major insights of the architects of postwar American foreign policy was that engagement abroad depended upon consensus and prosperity at home. A national social safety net could help diffuse social tensions and avoid radical economic dislocations. National infrastructure projects—such as a federal highway system—had obvious national security implications, but they could also provide economic benefits. At times, promoting those domestic goals required intervention in global trade flows. For instance, Ronald Reagan’s negotiation of import quotas for Japanese automobiles helped lessen domestic political tensions over the effects of trade with Japan and encouraged Japanese auto manufacturers to open factories in the United States.

There are lessons here for present-day policymakers. Policies that support economic resilience and industrial capacity might not be opposed to the project of global engagement; they might actually be necessary to make that engagement possible. A United States that does not have ready access to medical supplies, military equipment, foodstuffs, and other key economic goods will be unable to exercise the responsibilities of a great power on the global stage. Diversified networks of trade can be one vehicle for such access, as can industrial policies to encourage domestic production of key economic and strategic goods. Senator Tom Cotton and Congressman Mike Gallagher have proposed the “Protecting our Pharmaceutical Supply Chain from China Act,” which speaks to both aims. Over time, it requires certain federal agencies to purchase pharmaceutical products with PRC-free active pharmaceutical ingredients. And it offers various incentives for companies to expand pharmaceutical manufacturing at home.

Efforts at nurturing domestic industrial capacity are not incompatible with continued participation in global networks of trade. Senator Hawley has called for a coalition of trade among American allies, and Marshall Auerback has argued that, even within the WTO framework, there is plenty of room for trade reform that reinforces economic sovereignty and encourages domestic manufacturing. Today, many countries—such as Germany and South Korea—have used industrial policy to develop a certain economic infrastructure while also trading with the rest of the world. The choice between industrial policy and participation in multilateral institutions is a false one. What exactly a reformed vision of globalization should involve is up for debate, but it nevertheless seems possible to consolidate some of the gains from the current iteration of globalization while also addressing some key challenges of civic and economic integrity.

One could go even further and suggest that an absence of American economic reform might undermine the standing of many multilateral institutions created in the postwar era. The strength of the postwar international order rested to some extent upon the strength of its member nations, especially key stakeholders. The United States during the Cold War tried to combine international engagement with the maintenance of the internal resources for a resilient democratic republic. While there may be some tension between the project of openness to trade and sustaining robust internal supply chains, politics is in part the art of navigating tensions. Striking some balance between those imperatives can allow the United States to continue to be a cornerstone for many of the institutions it helped erect out of the ashes of war.

Fred Bauer is a writer from New England. You can follow him on Twitter: @fredbauerblog.