As I read Robert Zoellick’s op-ed in the Washington Post proposing some course corrections in what the president-elect has had to say about trade two thoughts occurred to me. First, I think Mr. Zoellick would be horrified at the prospect of genuinely free trade. What we have now isn’t free trade. It’s an elaborate edifice of protections and penalties that picks winners and losers. Licensed service providers and owners of intellectual property, just to name a few, are winners. Textile manufacturers are losers. Indeed, just about any industry that employs lots of people is a loser.
And second when China engages in illegal practices (like dumping), the U. S. files a claim with the WTO, wins and imposes tariffs, and China retaliates by imposing tariffs or quotas of its own, it’s the Chinese who are the aggressors. Complaining that we’re risking a trade war is frivolous.
We’re already in a trade war. Our efforts at defense are phlegmatic. If our efforts after Pearl Harbor had been that phlegmatic, Californians would be speaking Japanese.
The big losers in China’s predatory trade practices are people in Mexico, Brazil, and the dozens of other countries that would like to follow the path that Japan and South Korea and China have to develop their economies.
I also find these kinds of ahistorical claims being made more frequently: “From its earliest days, the new American republic pressed for freedom to trade in a world of mercantilist empires. The first American treaties were for ‘amity and commerce.'”
This country has a substantial history from Hamilton, to Clay to Lincoln of economic nationalism, including protective tariffs. What I believe he and others are actually referring to is to an even more broadly held conviction that Americans should have open access to engage in trade in all ports, something the imperial powers generally rejected.
I don’t think the Treaty of Amity and Commerce had much to do with trade, though it did open one port in France to U.S. trade, and expressed the agreement that each country will never charge a duty greater than any other country, but the Americans expressly rejected a provision which would have prevented them from imposing any duties on molasses from the French Caribbean.
The French later complained that the Americans were not honoring the treaty because they felt it implied a lower duty than other countries, whereas the Americans maintained that the terms only compelled to impose a duty no higher than any other country. Sec. of State Jefferson thought the French did not have a legal leg to stand on, but advised that Americans should throw them a bone in the spirit of friendship. I don’t think Congress acted on this.
So, he who does not know history is doomed to misunderstand it and misuse it, eh?
I’m thinking that all of the people are simply lying when they state that America was founded on free-trade. They almost certainly have to know better; there is a popular musical right now about Hamilton for goodness sake. Is nothing learned other than Hamilton was Black?
I don’t know when exactly the U.S. moved towards free trade; probably right after the Cold War when its industrial might was largely unchallengable. There were probably some earlier moments from time to time, but nothing sustainable and nothing to the extent of Great Britain and other European countries in the 19th century.
It’s a Humpty Dumpty world. When they say “free trade” they don’t mean trade unimpeded by tariffs or other government interference. They mean exactly what they want it to mean, no more, no less.
Not that I think whatever the Founders or Lincoln did should determine what we should do today.
Yeah, defining terms would be helpful here, but I think its a light weight argument to authority.
We still participate in local speech and debate and judge when they need us. Every time some kid gets up and claims that our country was founded on free market principles I cringe inwardly.
Steve
Free market and free trade are somewhat different topics. Prior to about 1900 we had much freer markets than we do now. It wasn’t exactly the good old days as anyone who’s read The Octopus, The Pit, The Jungle, or Samuel Hopkins Adams’s series on “The Great American Fraud” could tell you.
I am probably one of the few people who will admit to being an anarcho-capitalist philosophically, and if anybody wants, I have no problem going there in reality.
The problem with an unregulated free-market is the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and this was not a one-off event. Pressure vessels and boilers had been killing and maiming people for years, and the free-market did nothing about it.
The nonsense about the free-market replacing the FAA is repudiated by the fact that foreign airlines cut costs any way they can, and the free-marketers are not clamoring for Banana Republic Airlines to have equal access to US airspace. I would go so far as to bet that no libertarian, conservative, or any other loud-mouthed unregulated free-marketer would let anybody he/she cared about get on any of those planes.
There is an actual free-market in the US. It is the underground economy and the criminal networks. If you think that the customer is always right, argue with the local drug dealer about the quality of your crystal meth purchase. I am sure the customer service department is going to get right on it.