“Yeah, and this free trade thing we’ve been doing is going to bankrupt the United States too. ...any day now. ...still waiting. ...just around the corner.”
In the scope of history, it may just be around the corner. The free trade you advocate, that’s been going on with unequal partners, has been going on for about 13 years, plus or minus. (I’ll use NAFTA as the genesis).
Interesting that you accept economist’s lessons when it suits you. What of Spain, and England, and the unequal free trade that brought them to their economic knees? Doesn’t count? They didn’t do it right? Gee, kind of sounds like Marxists talking about Russia or Cuba.
“In the scope of history, it may just be around the corner. The free trade you advocate, that’s been going on with unequal partners, has been going on for about 13 years, plus or minus. (I’ll use NAFTA as the genesis).”
I wouldn’t call it free trade, but legislated trade. It actually started in the 1950s when Congress passed legislation during the Eisenhower administration that assured that most manufacture of electronics products would move to Japan. It did, and such legislation was passed that affected other industries long before NAFTA.
Actually, our trade policies have been our biggest foreign aid program (and still is). A main incentive of aiding Japan in the 1950s was to help them recover economically and become a strong Cold War ally.