Posted on 04/08/2016 5:51:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
For years, supporters of free trade have been trying to reach a bipartisan consensus on the issue. They've finally succeeded. Free trade is now unpopular in both parties.
Perhaps because I am a conservative, I can at least understand where most conservatives are coming from in their opposition to free trade. Overt displays of nationalism and patriotism (which are not the same thing, by the way) are not merely tolerated on the right, they're often celebrated. Conservative intellectuals openly extol American exceptionalism while liberal intellectuals tend to deride the notion. Virtually no Republican politician agonizes over wearing a U.S. flag pin.
Meanwhile, the left adores cosmopolitanism, the United Nations and what some people call "transnational progressivism," or "one-worldism." Conservatives tend to scoff at all of the above, preferring national sovereignty and the American Way.
Of course, this stuff can go too far. That "freedom fries" business was silly.
Beyond a sincere misunderstanding about how trade works, the emotional case against free trade on the right boils down to "America first."
That phrase -- a favorite of pointedly nationalistic Donald Trump -- has complicated historical connotations, but let's leave all that aside. According to the protectionists, free trade is bad for American workers and some American businesses. America should come first. So we should do whatever is necessary to prevent bad things from happening to Americans. If doing so is bad for non-Americans, that's not our problem.
I think the math on all this is wrong. Free trade is good for most American workers and all American consumers, not just the "one percent." Indeed, it is largely thanks to trade that the average American worker is in the top 1 percent of earners in the world.
The protectionists are also wrong philosophically. Countries don't trade with others countries; businesses and consumers transact with other businesses and consumers. Protectionism is corporate welfare by other means.
But the point is, I get where conservatives are coming from.
I'm more perplexed about where liberals -- and in Bernie Sanders' case, socialists -- are coming from. Last I checked, liberals considered themselves "citizens of the world." Barack Obama's famous campaign speech in Berlin (which was better in the original Esperanto) was all about the need to tear down the walls between nations. For the last decade, liberals in the Democratic Party and the media have invested enormous amounts of time and energy arguing that American citizenship is almost a technicality. The very term "illegal immigrant" is forbidden by most newspaper style guides.
Sanders says that he believes in "fair trade." What he means is that we can't be expected to do business with countries that pay their workers a lot less than we pay our workers. He suggested to the New York Daily News this week that we should have free trade only with countries that have the same wages and environmental policies as us, which is another way of saying we shouldn't trade with poor countries.
In practical terms, Sanders wants to keep billions of (non-white) people poor -- very poor. If America were a flea market, his policy would be akin to saying, "Poor people of color cannot sell their wares here, even if customers want to buy them."
International trade, led by the United States, has resulted in the largest, fastest decrease in extreme poverty in human history. Roughly 700 million Chinese people alone have escaped extreme poverty since 1980, and most of that is attributable to China's decision to embrace the market economy and international trade. Want to keep Africa as poor as possible? Throw up as many trade barriers as you can
A true “free trade” agreement is a one page document.
A 5,000 page “free trade” agreement is 5,000 pages of exceptions to “free trade.”
“Perhaps because I am a conservative..”
Almost snorted up my coffe.
Go away, Jonah. And take George Will with you.
L
“Countries don’t trade with others countries; businesses and consumers transact with other businesses and consumers.”
Untrue.
We buy products from Chinese business, and China buys Government Bonds.
Unbalanced and Unsustainable.
...because it's not really free trade.
The protectionists are also wrong philosophically. Countries don’t trade with others countries; businesses and consumers transact with other businesses and consumers. Protectionism is corporate welfare by other means
********
Goldberg conveniently misses the practice of money manipulation that China, Mexico & Japan engage in via their governments. Devaluation of currency is a direct violation our trade agreements and something routinely ignored by Rs, Ds & neocons like Goldberg alike.
It is unfortunate that many of the Cruzers among us don’t see it, but this election has been a huge eye-opener. Donald Trump has made the Quislings on our side scatter like cockroaches. It’s shocking how many of them there are.
Conservatives value God, family and country.
Globalists are not Conservatives. Pretty much by definition.
Where’s Jonah going to afford a pair of pants without free trade?
Guy Can’t Buy Pair of Pants — Ned Cantwell
www.nedcantwell.com/blog/2015/8/11/guy-cant-buy-pair-of-pants
Aug 11, 2015 - Yes, he criticized Jonah Goldberg as a “guy that can’t buy a pair of pants.” How incisive. Guy who can’t buy a pair of pants!
Re: the arguments about “economic freedom”. People use the term “free trade” but I don’t think we ever see real free trade. Other countries put restrictions on US goods, while taking advantage of the American political which is riddled with whores and fools and traitors.
It is immoral to buy circuit boards from a country like Malaysia that employs literal human slaves to manufacture them.
We fought a civil war that ended slavery 150 years ago at the cost of 600,000 lives. Maybe we need another civil war to deal with the people who think that slavery in Malaysia is “economic freedom”.
“Free trade” people want a 2-tiered society... a handful of elites like George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg and a servant class of everyone else can just “service” the elites.
If trade is not a two-way street--with markets equally open to both parties--it ain't free.
If you think what we have now is free trade you are truly flawed
Another beltway insider that has no clue what is going on in this country.
Jonah Goldberg is the blind leading the blind.
He can’t see the devastation AND those former companies either gone or with lessened presence in the USA but still in existence overseas.
That alone is proof that something is wrong.
Jonah Goldberg is not sitting in some rust belt town where the decent jobs are all gone. He is not trying to support himself with a SNAP card and twenty hours as a Walmart greeter.
Our international trade problem could be solved by simply requiring that we not buy more from a given country than we sell to them. In other words, neither country becomes indebted to the other country.
Trade can only be “free” when there is balance. In the US we call it free trade because we have open markets, yet we also have some of the highest corporate taxes in the world - which drives out many companies.
Some, if not many, of our trading partners have much, much lower corporate taxes, often because (in part) they have such a tremendous advantage in the balance of trade.
So, when a company elects to move overseas to save billions in taxes, they are simply recognizing and following Uncle Sam’s advice on how to prosper.
...as are the arguments for it.
“(I)n general, the protective system of our day is conservative, while the free trade system is destructive. It breaks up old nationalities and pushes the antagonism of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the extreme point. In a word, the free trade system hastens the social revolution. It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade.”Goldberg seems to not understand just why communists even today are in favor of “free trade”.
— Karl Marx before the Democratic Association of Brussels January 9, 1848
In the modern world there is no such thing as “free” trade. All international trade is governed by trade agreements of one sort or another, negotiated by government bureaucrats and voted on by bought and paid for politicians. The problem is that the globalists in our government have negotiated away a level playing field, giving the advantage to our trading “partners” and killing American jobs in the process.
Anyone who says they are for “free” trade is either parading their ignorance of how trade is actually governed or they are globalists, complicit in the hollowing out of the American middle class. Goldberg is the latter.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.