Yep. And the United States is one of the worst offenders, both of subsidizing decrepit industries and of inflating (devaluing) the currency.
I understand your sentiment - free trade is good for everyone and I think most FReepers agree.
You are also correct about government subsidies and currency games being bad.
What you have apparently missed is that NAFTA has been perverted - it’s not about free trade - it’s about corporate profits and exporting jobs to accomplish this. Government, big business, and even the Marxists among us have used it for anything but free trade!
It’s a perfect example of why we no longer practice true capitalism. What we have is crony-capitalism that benefits the market, politicians, and CEO’s. When “big business” is bailed out to the tune of trillions of dollars that our children and grandchildren will have to pay we can’t call it capitalism. Both political parties are to blame.
NAFTA is a great idea on paper because free trade benefits everyone. NAFTA in reality (just like TARP) mostly benefited the big boys on Wall Street. Any gains you or I may have made in our investments were erased permanently by the hidden tax of inflation as the Fed created more dollars.
I believe most “Republicans” are now supporting a lie because we support capitalism. We don’t really have that when the government picks the winners and losers and bails them out and pumps the markets. The big money owns our politicians and government. It’s crapitalism - not capitalism.