I don't recall saying trade is "never good" in any sense. Such absolutes are pointless. The point is that free trade as executed in the United States can not be said with any degree of certainty to be an objective net positive, and to continue to portray that the notion that it is a net positive is a "consensus" among economists for political purposes is deceitful.
The first part was with reference to your sentence:
Trade was never "good" under a Rawlsian framework, but now it's very unclear if it's "good" under various utilitarian frameworks either.
Okay, look, let's talk from a practical perspective. With the people heading into the next administration (Navarro, Kudlow, Mulvaney), the effects of free trade on the U.S. will be framed as a "50-50" issue; half thinks it's a net benefit, the other half thinks every major multilateral trade deal should be put on death watch.
Among economists, however, I don't see the benefits of trade as a 50-50 issue. To use the IGM economic experts panel, I have not seen the panel ever break 20% for protectionism on a trade question: see
here,
here,
here, here. On a "fair trade" question there is just
no consensus for support or disapproval (maybe this is what you're getting at?)
The weakest version of my argument is that if you want to phrase a "collapsing consensus on free trade," expect some economists to administer a "97%" poll like climate scientists did on the issue of free trade.