Dan Drezner points out signs that the Bush administration is playing deep defense on the WTO defeat on steel tariffs, and is thinking about pulling back on projected wood tariff reductions. I have a very bad feeling about the current state of trade liberalization. The Bush administration has been categorically worse on the subject than the Clinton administration was, and all the Democratic contenders are busy making Bush look like a free-trader in comparison. The last time we had a full-scale retreat on global trade, it ended in global depression and global fucking war. I'm not a doctrinaire believer in the Peace of Dives, but lord knows trade is better than no trade, and poverty breeds war like rotting meat breeds maggots - by indirect encouragement.