[n-tres-ted]

I respectfully suggest you should re-study the principles and premises of free trade, and reconsider what you think to be the better approach. Free trade is simply the government stepping out of the way (as much as it ever does) so that individuals may choose to deal with whomever they choose. Any other approach involves the government stepping in to collect a tax on goods or services your neighbor needs so you can sell something at a higher price. As with the steel tariffs recently imposed and then terminated, the tariffs destroyed more jobs in the U.S. than were saved, and the jobs saved cost far more than they were reasonably worth. The U.S. caused the Crash of 1929 and the collapse of world trade by voting to abandon free trade in the U.S. Senate in October, 1929, a historic error that contributed greatly to bringing on WWII. We must not make the same mistake again.

[bvw]

All markets, no matter how "free" require adjudication of disputes over payment, settling of differences over offers, establishment of standards such as in measure, and a way to mark ownership and to resolve ownerships. Adjudications and follow-ups require courts and court officers (baliffs and police). Courts and police require a system of laws, laws and courts and police require governments.

Governments require money. Services, courts, policing are not free.

No market is ever really "free". Between markets laws must be compatible, for anything resembling the ideals of free trade to occur. Standards of ownership, of quality and measure in one must be respected and understood -- capable of being judged and enforced -- in the other.

We can't have free trade with a nation of theifs and pirates -- our first War as a nation under law was to settle that: the Barbary War, the Barbary Wars.

And in addition we can't long survive trade with a slaver nation or nations. Or STATES. Another war -- our fiercest and bloodiest -- the US Civil War -- settled that.

The reasons are also obivous. Slaver labor costs undercut that of freemen every time. If the North hadn't have bested the Slaver South, the perils of slavery would have eventually spread into the North as well.

And so it is with China. Not only are their laws incompatible with our own, but they are slavers. If we continue with this ridiculous "free trade" with them two results are possible -- both may be had. War and the creation of an enslaved class in the US. Won't be called "slavery" of course -- but will be in all other regards.