Free market propaganda has never been applied under equal circumstances. It is rhetoric used by capital to reduce or destroy regulations, labor, national sovereignty, etc. Western industrialized capitalist coubtries built their industry and infrastructure using tariffs to protect it, then turned around and demanded the opposite from other countries so that they would have to buy their products and sell whatever those colonizer countries wanted (at the time, usualky raw materials).
Now that other countries are ascendant, US-based “free market” capital is gladly re-embracing protectionist logic. It has only ever been about maximizing their profits. The “theory” of free markets tails capital, it isn’t a science or even a valid line of thought.
And this behavior is somehow sold to the public as a way to boost the economic wellness of the people living under the isolationist programs, but instead it enables profiteering corporations to exert more control over the artificially narrowed market space.
Locking the door with the fox(es) in the henhouse.
In some cases it has improved public welfare as industrial capital demanded infrastructure and education, though of course they also demanded as much of your day as possible for as little wage as possible. And as finance wins out it acts like a parasite on productivity while still demanding maximum time and minimal wages.
