RICHMOND, Va. (AP)—President Reagan said today that Democratic candidates who espouse trade restrictions and retaliation have a message the public won’t buy.

“Protectionism isn’t just bad economics, it’s bad politics,” the president said.

Reagan, in an address prepared for delivery to workers at the Reynolds Metals Co., issued a back-handed slap at critics of his free-trade philosophies. Although he didn’t name him, Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., made finding new solutions to the nation’s trade woes a fixture of his campaign. “I think the American people have decided that one Great Depression is enough, and they aren’t going to give the trade demgogues a second chance,” Reagan said.

“I would note that on Super Tuesday, those who had predicted that protectionism would be embraced in the South were proven wrong,” Reagan said.

The president attacked the international trade bill under consideration by a House-Senate conference committee. The House version contains a Gephardt proposal requiring presidential action against nations running excess trade surpluses.

“I’ll veto it if I must,” Reagan warned.

He decided the bill’s mandatory retaliation and automatic protection provisions as “seriously harmful to the national interest. If enacted, they could weaken the international trading system and could require the president to start trade wars.”

“It’s a bad proposal under any circumstance,” Reagan charged, contending that it is particularly harmful now that exports were increasing.

In remarks apparently directed at Democrats faulting his trade plans, Reagan said, “Too many talk about making America tore competitive, but support provisions in the trade bill that would bench some of the best competitors on our team. They talk about saving jobs, but they want provisions that have the potential to destroy thousands if not millions of American jobs.”

Reagan accused his critics of being “myth-makers” who accuse his administration of overseeing “the de-industrialization of America, the decline of the middle clase and the loss of American jobs.”

The president contended that “the reality” is the growth of new jobs and five years of steadily rising real income.

He also pointed out that the economy is in its 64th straight month of expansion and that manufacturing exports are surging as evidence of the strength of his programs. Although the trade balance is slowly improving, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit widened to $12.44 billion in January and in 1987, the trade deficit exploded to a record $171.22 billion.