What in the world does this statement have to do with you explaining to me what the system of trade regulation is or should be?
LOL, yeah, I am VERY rabid about free trade. I've yet to hear from you one single justification for anyone besides the owner of a company determining who he should trade with and how much he should trade? And no, I am not a libertarian. I think they're idiots for their obsession with drugs.
...I'm beginning to suspect you are a rabidly, all-out free trader. Are you by chance a libertarian, also?
Hey! I resent that.
Some of us libertarians know that "free trade", as practiced, means unlimited access to the US market by foreign companies, with little or no reciprocity.
Some of us know that it isn't fair to US firms and their workers to make them conform to, and pay for, the myriad of rules, regulations and laws that go with operating here, while allowing free access to competing companies that produce in areas that impose no such costs (many in fact subsidizing those foreign companies' operating costs).
Some of us libertarians know that the true cost of an imported product must include the additional tax burden imposed on the taxpayer to support and re-train workers whose jobs are sent overseas.
Some of us libertarians know that liberty is more important than free trade, and that liberty can't survive without a strong middle class, and that the middle class can't survive without the manufacturing and engineering jobs we're sending overseas by the tens of millions.
Some of us libertarians can see that the structural changes to the economy, and the loss of whole industries, is different than the past transformation of US buggy-whip manufacturers into US auto manufacturers.
Some of us libertarians know that the real price of that expensive toyota or that cheap chinese TV set is this nation's future, and I'm one of 'em.