[Arguendo]

The lead author, Jesse Richman (jrichman@odu.edu), is an assistant professor of political science at Old Dominion University.

It's always a good idea to take advice on economic policy from an assistant professor of political science, even when most economists reject his approach.

[JLS]

Yeah that Smoot-Hawley tarriff worked so well for the GOP. As I remember it led to years of GOP dominance in the White House and Congress....

[AmericanInTokyo]

As in most of these things, just follow the money, or in this case, follow the lobbyists.

Big lobbyists in the USA, mostly in D.C, working BOTH PARTIES, and getting money from the Chinese, Japanese and others to keep THOSE markets closed to the products produced by US workers, have found their way into senior positions in the Obama, Clinton AND McCain campaigns.

The damned thing is rigged. Does anyone really expect Fair Trade to take center stage under the next Globalist US President, any way you toss the dice?

[Malesherbes]

The arguments for “free trade” as espoused by the WSJ and others are little more than slogans and bumper stickers. The brutal truth is that we are shipping our low-skills jobs overseas while our government schools are turning out increasing numbers of low-skills workers. We are told that these job losses will be replaced by “better jobs” - presumably in high tech and international finance. Lots of luck to the South Carolina textile workers who have watched their looms loaded onto trains headed for Mexico.

If we don’t achieve something at least approaching “balanced trade,” we’ll lose not only Pennsylvania and Ohio but the Carolinas as well. And when we wake up to the fact that the electronic components of our “smart bombs” are made in China, well, it just may be too late.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

On one hand there is a trade populism that ignores all economic arguments in favor of free trade because of their outlook on social considerations and economic class. On the other hand there is a trade elitism out there that ignores all national security and long term arguments in favor of trade policies to protect vital American interests because of THEIR biases on the basis of social and economic class, a revulsion of doing anything that might incidentally benefit the lowly masses.

Duncan Hunter's position on a prudent middle ground on the trade issue is one reason I thought he was the best choice for president.