In a world without governments, free trade is a great idea. But we do not live in such a world. Since we have a government, there must be a mechanism to fund it. Something is terribly wrong when labor is taxed at 40%, capital at 20%, but goods crossing borders are taxed at 0%.
Why aren't our "leaders" pushing for abolishing the income tax first, then tariffs once we do that? Or abolishing taxes on investments first? And notice that the same line is coming from leaders of both parties. No one wants to address our massive internal taxes, beyond minor tinkering and lip service, but they are all for the TOTAL abolition of international tariffs. No one wants to repeal any of the insane, outdated, or contradictory laws that WE Americans live under, but the politicians can't repeal the laws governing our borders quickly enough. Why do you think this is?
The only reason I can think of is that they want a global government, where the elites rule over peasants, who are their slaves. Since such a proposal won't fly yet, they have to go incrementally. By tearing down economic boundaries, political boundaries become easier to remove. If you need evidence, just look at what has happened in Europe. First the European Common Market, now the European Union. Same thing with NAFTA, although we are a few years behind the EU.
BTW, none of these "agreements" are really Free trade. They are complex agreements designed to erode US sovereignty, redistribute American wealth, and destroy American industry.
This is a very important point. Tarriffs are now an average of 4-5% so the only place to go now is zero. Somehow the drop from as high as 70% was not enough to bring the riches promised, so we are supposed to go along with more. If I didn't know better I'd swear some liberal were tring to nickle and dime me. I also find it hard to believe that such import is put on eliminating a small, indirect tax, while the income tax, property tax, capital gains, etc. get nothing but constant tiny decreases while democrats wait in the wings to reverse those pathetic 'cuts'. Seriously, tarriff-free traders, who are you trying to fool?