[katana]

I must admit to being torn on the question, so your point is very well taken. The unions and the tendency of American companies to let the accountants run everything have done more to drive businesses under or offshore than any other factors.

But where my opinion on free trade vs. protection has migrated is the question of maintaining a domestic industrial manufacturing, agricultural, and resource base for both national and economic security. We do still export quite a lot of goods in certain manufacturing sectors, including medical (the area I work in), but even here our comparative advantage is declining rapidly and production is moving offshore. Once that base is lost it won't necessarily be easy to get back.

[allmendream]

To me it is like war and peace.

I prefer peace to war. But that doesn't make me a pacifist, I am a former professional warrior in the USAF and believe that the best way to have peace is to prepare for war.

I prefer free trade to a highly regulated, subsidized, and taxed market. But when they roll out the below costs goods, subsidized by their government, in an effort to bankrupt competition, there should be a price to pay for that.

But I prefer free trade to a highly regulated, subsidized, and taxed market; just as I prefer peace to war.