Last week, I wrote about the energy bill and passages that impose penalties on countries that violate the bill. The president thinks this is "protectionism":

“At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade,” Mr. Obama said, “I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there.”

He added, “I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach.”

   Respectfully, Mr. President, you don’t do the debate over trade any good by lapsing back on lazy marketing phrases like "protectionism". Can we just simply talk about the RULES. You may not like the rules but let’s deal with that notion–rather than toss around intellectually soft hot-button phrases that shed more heat than light. Indeed, it would be hard to make the argument that the rules the energy bill has would have more than a pinprick on trade levels given that the decline in trade is about the collapse of consumer demand which directly results from depressed wages.