Mercantilism Lives

This is overly optimistic. It implies that there was a time where they went away.

You mean our trading partners are mercantilists. Pointing that out is not necessarily mercantilist.

There is the flip side of import protectionism and that is export subsidies.

Too often protectionists will exaggerate other countries trade restrictions and understate ours to get the trade relief they want. In the eighties, Japanese protectionism was grossly exaggerated by those who were pushing for protectionism against Japanese imports.

The mercantilists have been back for a while. They are also known as the Keynesians. Keynes was a mercantilist, and it is a horrible infection in economics. Politicians have always been mercantilists, which is why they are Keynesians.