More Weak Arguments for ‘Free’ Trade
The American manufacturing industry is not doing well.
Can we expect the proponents of free trade to update their arguments? If you make the same arguments as you did in 1994 in 2024, you give the impression that the world has not changed.
The failure of the libertarian side of the trade debate to learn any lessons from history is the main thrust of my piece in the last issue’s cover package on the 30th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Colin Grabow, a researcher at the American Institute for Economic Research has written 1,700 words in response to my thesis.
Grabow argues that international trade is nothing new. “The first evidence of long‐distance trade dates back to 3000 BCE,” he writes. He fails to mention, however, that the first tariffs were introduced in the same time period. Many ancient civilizations taxed foreign goods, including the Romans.
Grabow claims that the World Trade Organization was also nothing new. Its…
