YEARS DIVISIBLE BY FOUR are not good for free trade. When Americans go about the quadrennial chore of choosing a president, the candidates seeking their votes know one thing: everyone disadvantaged by the free international movement of goods and services and jobs knows who they are. But the winners–consumers who get cheaper goods, shareholders in businesses that profit from free trade, workers whose jobs are created by free trade–are a diffuse group, often unaware that their good fortune is a result of free trade.

So we are witnessing the spectacle of John Kerry, by nightfall certain to have a lock on the Democratic presidential nomination, calling for a review and possible revamping of all trade agreements, including NAFTA and the Africa/Caribbean trade agreement for which he once voted, and the treatment of businessmen who invest abroad as “unpatriotic” or worse–traitorous Benedict Arnolds, to be shamed and taxed.