There’s a big difference between a free market and so-called “free trade”. The latter allows those that do not believe in a free market to participate, and by so doing to undermine those who do believe in a free market. Mercantilists can walk away with the whole store . . .
“and by so doing to undermine those who do believe in a free market”
What kind of loopy, backwards reasoning is this? Those who maintain a free market at home benefit from trade with those who break it abroad. The latter only hurt themselves.
Your supposed distinction between a free market and free trade is specious. They are one and the same. Free trade is an international free market. If one of the participants in the internation free market restrains trade within their own border, all that means is that they have no free market domestically. It doesn’t mean, I don’t know what, that they’re abandoning the free market in the interest of free trade.
Sorry if that doesn’t make sense, but I admit, I can’t make sense of what you’re saying. The beauty of free trade is that you benefit from it regardless of how your trading partner organizes his house.