Thanks for asking - that’s a pretty important question.
True free trade, would be a good thing. Certainly free trade should be practiced - ruthlessly even - within our national border.
Let all Americans compete fair and square, and let the best claim the biggest rewards.
But what we have now, is a wholesale selling of our NATION.
By a few. Costing all of us, our future.
There is nothing “free” about the global trade system. It is rigged entirely, from every direction, against America.
All our so called partners, are protectionist.
Many blatantly racist, in national policy.
Yet we go along, sending our technology, jobs, factories and knowledge.
To people planning our demise.
We need to drop the pretense, and adopt reciprocal trade.
Without apology. And without compromise.
Want to sell stuff in America?
Then buy stuff from us.
Buy 50 million as a nation from the USA?
OK you can sell 50 million US dollar equivalents of zloties, or whatever currency, here.
Buy 10 million more, sell 10 million more.
We need to stop this process of giving away everything valuable which America has built over our history, before we cannot anymore.
Before there is nothing valuable left.
That point, is very rapidly approaching.
If we wait until we truly have no more jobs, no more money and no more factories.
We’re well and truly finished as a nation.
It will at that point, be too late for us all.
And frankly, too late for the world.
That light is in fact, an approaching train.
/follow-on rant :)
“All our so called partners, are protectionist.”
Yes, to varying degrees. America also has some protectionist policies. Fewer than most, it’s true.
“Many blatantly racist, in national policy.”
Of course. Race and culture are the only true binding factors of a group. There has never been a thing called “nation” without common race and/or culture.
“Yet we go along, sending our technology, jobs, factories and knowledge.”
Technology - there should be laws about this, and there are. Unfortunately democrats bypass those laws for campaign donations. It’s illegal, and it should be prosecuted. But free trade is not the issue there.
Jobs - the question becomes to what degree to you bypass the free market? The theory is, if a Chinese guy will do it for £2 a month, why not let him, then spend the remainder wisely? It’s tough in a time of high unemployment. But those times pass.
Factories - yeah I agree a LOT here. Japan taxes rice imports because it wants to have its own food source. Fair enough. America needs an industrial base. But also, such endeavors are hard to do right. It’s easy in the Japan situation - they know exactly what they want to tax & exactly what they want to protect. Do we want to protect ALL manufacturing, or are there some things we are perfectly happy to get cheaply from abroad? It’s not totally simple.
Knowledge - I would say (1) why should all US government information produced, which is useful information to competitors and enemies, be available to any korean hacker that wants it? Why should US federal intellectual property be classified as “public domain” for anyone in the world to use? That’s true. But again for me the main issue is democrats beaking the law, with knowledge, not a free trade issue.
“To people planning our demise.”
They are. That’s the world. It always has been.
“We need to drop the pretense, and adopt reciprocal trade.”
Is there any particular area you’re thinking of?