A FEW days ago, I visited the shiny headquarters of the Peterson Institute for International Economics on “think tank row” in Washington — basically, the locker room of the Team Globalization and Free Trade cheering squad.

I was there to take part in a discussion of an old friend’s outstanding book on the subject, Steven R. Weisman’s “The Great Tradeoff: Confronting Moral Conflicts in the Era of Globalization.”

After praising Steve’s book, I emphasized that I had paid attention in economics class and understood that globalization incontrovertibly has benefited not only the world but also the United States. That’s in part because trade permits Americans to buy goods at lower prices; the added purchasing power helps our economy expand faster.

But I soon pivoted to my experience working in the Obama administration on the auto rescue, an experience that had seared into me the sense that intermingled among the many winners from globalization were a substantial number of losers.