Protectionism is back with a vengeance. The tariff escalations between Washington and Beijing, the reshoring imperatives unleashed by COVID-19, and the weaponization of economic interdependence following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have made trade restrictions a central instrument of statecraft once again. In this context, Nicolás Albertoni’s Trade Protectionism in an Uncertain and Interconnected Global Economy arrives at a propitious moment, though its origins predate these recent convulsions. Based on research conducted between 2015 and 2022, the book anticipated much of what has since become conventional wisdom: that the architecture of global trade liberalization built over seven decades contains within it the seeds of its own subversion. What makes this work particularly valuable is not its prescience alone, but its systematic documentation of how protectionism has evolved in form even as it has intensified in substance.

The central puzzle Albertoni addresses is counterintuitive: how is it that protectionist measures have multiplied even as countries have become increasingly interconnected through preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and global value chains (GVCs)? His answer challenges the conventional wisdom in the trade interdependence literature. While previous scholarship maintained that deeper economic linkages between countries reduce the likelihood of trade tensions, Albertoni demonstrates that the relationship is more nuanced. His core hypothesis suggests that PTAs and GVCs, under conditions of heightened economic uncertainty, can become conduits for protectionism rather than simply deterring it. Countries facing domestic pressures to shield their economies from external shocks increasingly resort to non-tariff measures (NTMs), such as subsidies, licensing requirements, and technical barriers, that circumvent the transparency requirements of traditional tariff-based protection. Albertoni, following the work of Baldwin and Evenett (Reference Baldwin and Evenett2009), calls this ‘murky’ protectionism, and his book offers both a theoretical framework and substantial empirical evidence to explain its rise.

Methodologically, the book employs a sophisticated mixed-methods approach. The quantitative component draws on an original dataset compiled from the Global Trade Alert (GTA) database, covering over 170 countries and representing approximately 98% of global trade flows from 2009 to 2019. Albertoni tests five main hypotheses using directed dyad-year data at the state level, examining both the likelihood of protectionist responses and the conditioning effects of PTAs and GVCs on the type of measures deployed. The econometric analysis yields compelling results: while PTAs do appear to reduce overall protectionist retaliation, they are positively correlated with non-tariff responses specifically. This counterintuitive finding resembles evidence on the use of non-tariff responses among democracies (Kono, Reference Kono2006). Countries embedded in trade agreements respond to partners’ protectionism with less visible instruments, precisely to avoid escalating tensions while still satisfying domestic constituencies.

The qualitative component focuses on three Latin American case studies, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, representing 72% of regional exports. These cases are particularly instructive. Mexico, deeply integrated into North American supply chains through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (now USMCA), exhibits the pattern Albertoni predicts: high trade interconnectivity correlates with greater reliance on murky instruments. The share of non-transparent protectionist measures used by Mexico toward close trading partners averaged 47% between 2009 and 2019, compared to 32% toward countries without PTAs. Argentina and Brazil, operating within Mercosur’s framework, present a more troubling picture: high levels of within-bloc protectionism coexist with limited GVC integration, suggesting that regional arrangements alone are insufficient without genuine production complementarities.

The book’s empirical richness is enhanced by over 20 interviews with policymakers, business leaders, and trade experts across Latin America. These provide valuable texture to the quantitative findings, revealing the political dynamics underlying protectionist choices. An industrial union leader’s observation that opens the first chapter captures the essence of the phenomenon: governments are asked to implement policies ‘in silence’ to help domestic industries become ‘more competitive without being as obvious to the rest of the world’. This qualitative evidence illuminates the demand-side pressures that drive murky protectionism and lends the analysis a degree of verisimilitude that purely quantitative studies often lack.

Several aspects of this work merit particular attention. First, Albertoni’s measurement strategy is innovative. By distinguishing between transparent and non-transparent measures using the GTA’s classification system, he moves beyond the crude tariff-versus-NTM dichotomy that has limited previous studies. The focus on the share of bilateral trade affected by protectionist measures provides a more meaningful indicator than simple counts of policy interventions. Second, the book situates the post-GFC protectionist surge within a longer historical trajectory, tracing the evolution of the multilateral trading system from Bretton Woods through China’s WTO accession to the current era of great power rivalry. This contextualization helps readers appreciate both the novelty and the continuity of contemporary trade tensions.

The policy implications are substantial. For practitioners, the book underscores the inadequacy of monitoring frameworks that focus primarily on tariffs. The fact that 79% of protectionist measures affecting least-developed countries between 2009 and 2018 were NTMs highlights the distributional consequences of this measurement blind spot. Sectors such as metal products, apparel, and iron and steel bear disproportionate burdens from G20 protectionism, with effects that cascade through employment and development outcomes. Albertoni’s analysis suggests that strengthening transparency mechanisms within PTAs and the WTO system should be a priority, even as the author acknowledges the political difficulties of doing so.

In a somewhat unusual turn for an academic author, Albertoni has had the opportunity to confront the very dynamics he analyzed from a position of policy responsibility. Immediately after the book was published, he served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (Subsecretario de Relaciones Exteriores) in Uruguay under President Luis Lacalle Pou’s administration, where he grappled first hand with the Mercosur dysfunctions his research documents, including the bloc’s struggles to negotiate external agreements and the persistent non-tariff barriers among its members.

The book is not without limitations. The treatment of GVCs, while conceptually clear, relies on intermediate goods trade as a proxy measure, an approach Albertoni acknowledges is imperfect given data constraints. The econometric results for GVC effects are correspondingly less robust than those for PTAs. Additionally, the Latin American focus, while providing analytical depth, raises questions about generalizability to other regions where GVC integration patterns differ markedly. Finally, while the COVID-19 pandemic is mentioned as a kind of natural experiment, the analysis does not extend far enough to capture its full effects on trade policy dynamics, though this is a limitation of timing rather than design.

These small caveats notwithstanding, this is an important contribution to the international political economy literature. Albertoni writes accessibly while maintaining scholarly rigor, making the book suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers in trade policy, comparative political economy, and Latin American studies. The blend of quantitative and qualitative evidence is commendable, and the research design offers a model for future studies of policy diffusion and interdependence effects. His central message resonates well beyond the academy: the same institutional mechanisms that have enabled global economic integration can, under conditions of uncertainty and domestic political pressure, become vectors for its unraveling. As trade tensions show no signs of abating, this book provides essential analytical tools for understanding why – and for thinking about – what might be done.