Free Trade

The quest to use protectionism to make us more secure in our health and wealth would sever untold numbers of productive ties that we now have with the global web of economic interconnectedness. The end result would be an America far less secure in its wealth and health.

Economies, in short, grow the more open and free they are – that is, the further they are from being autarkic. Economies do not grow as a consequence of politicians and mandarins using tariffs, subsidies, and other special privileges to shield domestic producers from foreign competition.

“Absurd” is way too weak a word to describe the supposition that we Americans possess 100 percent, or even anything close to a majority, of the world’s creative potential.

If you wish to win greater support for a policy proposal, it’s useful to draw your audience’s attention to famous and respected historical figures who, were they still alive, would almost surely join you in supporting that position. For example, if you’re pressing for a policy of protective tariffs as a means of enriching the…

Several superb books, monographs, and papers are available to introduce non-economists to the positive economics of trade and to the normative case for a policy of unilateral free trade. And it’s a good thing. Today’s increasing eagerness of people across the ideological spectrum to embrace protectionism must be resisted with all the intellectual strength that…

Quoting F.A. Hayek’s 1960 claim that free markets will bring about a “balance … between exports and imports,” Oren Cass argues that the string of annual U.S. trade deficits over the past 44 years proves that Hayek was wrong – that history has “broken” Hayek’s “promise.” Being a non-economist, Mr. Cass can be forgiven for…