Much like immigration, our trade policy has been pretty much in line with the demands of the Wall Street Journal and it is time to reassess whether free trade, like open borders, can any longer be sustained by a welfare state competing against manipulated economies.
Open borders, whether admitting people or goods, is a political decision in which one part of society is benefited at the expense of another part of society. This is a reality that goes back to regional differences shaping America's response to the war of 1812. Should the country protect New England manufacturers at the expense of Southern consumers?
Today the Wall Street Journal wants us to protect American businesses with cheap labor through immigration and it wants us to protect high-tech exporters at the expense of commodity manufacturers. We have pretty much done so and the results are not pretty. But it is not as simple as that, we have benefited consumers but not if they are blue-collar workers in the manufacturing sector.
One thinks back to the warnings of Pat Buchanan and, dare I say it, Ross Perot which predicted the hardships we are now experiencing.
