The historic bipartisan consensus on trade is dead. It had long been on the critical list, first among Democrats, but finally among Republicans as well.

With the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) derailed, the playbook is wide open on what happens next on trade.

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The recent, tepid U.S. economic growth is being increasingly recognized as a major international challenge and a cause of increasing global financial instability. President Trump is clearly dedicated to turning this around and he will be seeking a new approach to trade deals.

So the question is, what can be done to rebuild broad support for the benefits free trade brings for American workers, the U.S. economy, and our trading partners? Reconstructing bipartisan support for trade agreements is essential to growing the U.S. and world economies.

Trade in insurance, in particular, has many benefits to countries that open their insurance markets, including private compensation for loss, infrastructure funding, and assistance to communities and individuals in identifying and reducing risk of loss.

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, eliminating foreign barriers for U.S. property and casualty insurers would allow insurers to collect $40 billion more annually in trade and create new jobs to support the business growth.

I offer four suggestions to help rebuild the consensus in support of good trade agreements that will bring profits and create jobs in the U.S.

First, we must stop the demagoguery across the political spectrum that generally demonizes all trade agreements. It is a truism that “elections matter” but campaigns matter as well.

Candidates cannot campaign with rhetoric that undermines trade and then expect to move trade deals forward once elected, which is exactly what President Obama did in 2008.

Why should anyone be surprised that TPP failed when the former president spent so little effort throughout most of his tenure explaining why it’s important to open Pacific markets for U.S. goods and services?

Likewise, U.S. consumers and voters deserve more regulatory transparency in the process. The decreasing support for the value of international trade is a direct result of elected officials failing to promote the conditions for economic growth before playing on Americans fear and frustration.

Second, restoring U.S. domestic economic growth is essential. A lot of public policy issues are much easier to solve at 3 percent GDP growth than at 1.5 percent.

While it is pretty clear from the data that trade flows increase both global and domestic GDP growth and productivity, it's important to remember that people don't live off data alone.

Yes, trade agreements add to national GDP, productivity, and wealth creation. However, sometimes those benefits are harder to see at the macro level than the very specific examples of industries, regions, and workers that are dislocated by changing trade patterns.

Third, protectionism isn’t the answer. Neither is blind faith in free trade and the marketplace. We need to have a serious national, bipartisan discussion about real trade-adjustment assistance that both provides a bridge for regional economies and workers impacted by trade patterns.

The United States spends untold billions of dollars on community and economic development programs across 18 different agencies. These programs can be refocused on communities negatively impacted by trade and toward regional economic clusters that drive jobs and wages.

We should be focused on increased competitiveness and growth, not another subsistence-based, wealth-transfer program.

Fourth, we need to listen carefully to the real concerns of the American electorate that are feeding protectionist sentiment on issues such as illegal immigration, and transnational institutions that manage and adjudicate trade disagreements.

I am reminded of what Abraham Lincoln once said in a different context: “A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot safely be ignored…In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything.”

David A Sampson is President and CEO of the Property Casualty Insurers Association and former Deputy Secretary of Commerce in the George W. Bush Administration. He is a national expert on regional economic development.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.