Don't mistake Free Trade with Free Markets
Ok. Then to clarify, here's the question I want answered by a free trader: Why must our tariff rates be at zero?
A Five or ten percent tariff is not a trade barrier (is one percent a trade barrier?) Would people buy less t-shirts at Wal-Mart if they were 5% more?
As we increase tariffs, we can lower income taxes, the reverse of what has happened since the progressive era.
Last summer I finished taking a MBA course on global economics and the professor flat out stated, the goal of free trade was an equalizing effect of everyone's wages. Now calculate the numbers of Americans and Europeans and their average wages vs all the third worlders (China and India alone have 2.3 billion) and see what that means. While the third worlders rise up, we collapse and only the lords of free trade make off well over the peasants. Thus, killing the middle class which is the only buffer to keep the socialists/communists out of power.
Of course. If that weren't the case, Walmart or the distributor would already be pricing them 5% higher. How much sales would decrease is another matter.
As we increase tariffs, we can lower income taxes, the reverse of what has happened since the progressive era.
I don't object to that in theory (the income tax is truly evil, tariffs somewhat less so), but I suspect Congress would find some "emergency" preventing any reduction in taxes.