There are at least two serious criticisms of free trade that I can think of that are not addressed in this article:<p>1. Borrowing from Taleb&#x27;s latest book, free trade encourages economic fragility. A country that specializes in textiles will be completely ruined when textile manufacturing is automated. Further, this level of specialization may crowd out other opportunities for growth and suppress the evolution of an economy towards even more productive exports by suppressing variability.<p>2. It is possible, as we are seeing in the US to some extent, that the comparative advantages that a country may have simply don&#x27;t need to employ very many people. In the case of the United States, some of our biggest exports are tech and finance, and those industries simply cannot support massive employment on the scale necessary to give everyone a job.<p>I&#x27;d be curious to hear any counter-arguments to these ideas.