I think all you "free trade" people are missing the whole point of trade to benefit the citizens of a nation.
A person needs certain categories of things to continue life: security (ranging from personal to a planetary), food (ranging from cornbread to haute cuisine), clothing (ranging from loin cloths to spacesuits) and shelter (ranging from hut to hall), entertainment (ranging from cards to digital experiences).
If left alone anywhere on the Earth, an individual would seek out these things. By getting together in tribes, states and nations, individuals can work together to get more of these things, and better.
In any large group of people, a nation perhaps, individuals thereof get right to work learning how to make items from one or more of the categories. Others put together ways to broadcast the items. By providing what someone else needs, and with the help of a medium of exchange, an individual can trade his items for some of the medium and use it to acquire needs from any category.
The ability to acquire items to satisfy the needs in each category depends entirely upon working in either the production of distribution of same. Since the economy is simply trading with one another, price is indexed by cost of the labor, and most items of each category is reachable by everyone.
Thusly does the group, or nation, serve the only conceivable reason for its existence.
In our history until the present, plus or minus a couple decades, we in this nation made what we needed, buying and selling to each other. The national fare was spiced with imports of sundry items, and we sold some surplus internationally. As a matter of fact, we build a wealthy and powerful nation doing precisely that.
This above method, "protectionism", of benefiting the individuals that make up a nation is founded in dependency of each on all of common goal, and has been proven to work to the enrichment of all involved. The method, "free trade", of benefiting those same individuals is founded in dependency of each to others of different, and potentially threatening, goals.
If we are going to call ourselves "conservatives", we need to do what conservatives do, enshrine in custom and practice that which we know works.
Tell me, how does it benefit the people of this nation to abandon an economic system has been proved viable, and embracing one that is experimental and dangerous on it very face?
Precisely. Free trade dogma takes no account of societal overhead which makes the bargain, overall, not worth it.
Some poster earlier argued that free trade is about cheapest possible goods, not jobs. To consider the productive capacity of your economy and the prosperity of its citizens an afterthought is increadibly foolishly shortsighted. There is such a thing as eating your seed grain.
What amazes me is how free trade shills like to yell "commie", as if there were something in the least bit conservative about free trade dogma (yeah, tell me about those commies Hamilton, Lincoln, McKinley, Taft, and Teddy Roosevelt), when it is they who exhibit a Leninist determination to sacrifice the lives and wellbeing of millions to their "scientific theory" of the perfect world.
Okay, let me explain.
Suppose you and I are trapped on an island. Let's assume that two tasks are to be completed for our survival - fishing and building shelter. Let's also assume that you are better than I at both tasks e.g. it takes you 10 (20) hours to catch a fish dinner (build a thatched hut) whereas it takes me 15 (45) hours to complete both tasks.
Now, according to Adam Smith's logic you should move away from me as far as possible and do fishing and shelter building on your own.
But Smith's logic is incorrect. What we should do is split the chores.
Let's first determine how many fish dinners and huts we could build on our own. Let's assume that during a year you and I work a total of 2000 and 3600 hours, respectively. If you spend 1000 hours on fishing (and the other 1000 on hut building) you will garner 100 fish dinners and have built 50 huts. If I spend 1800 hours on fishing (and the other 1800 on hut building) I'll have 120 dinners and 40 huts.
Thus, the total number of fish dinners and huts on the island are 220 and 90.
What happens if we specialize (i.e., comparative advantage, free trade)? If you spend all your time building huts, you will construct 100. If I spend all my time fishing I will garner 240 fish dinners. Hence, the island has increased ouput dramatically just by specializing, even though I was far less competent at both tasks.
This is the fundemental argument for free trade. It's often misunderstood because it's counterintuitive.