Free Trade Doesn't Work: Why America Needs a Tariff

Free Trade Doesnt Work ^ | January 30, 2010 | Ian Fletcher

[Impy]

Oh I’d gladly switch back to that old system and ditch the income tax for a revenue tariff to support a small federal government.

But a protectionist tariff on top of other federal taxes, no way.

[cizinec]

Free trade is a terrible idea if you own a steel mill or run a union.

This book endorsed by John J. Sweeney and Leo Gerard. I don't have enough time to read books endorsed by these losers. Gee, what other brilliant ideas do these endorse?

Good call.

[OneWingedShark]

>Wow, this book manages to be anti-producer and anti-consumer at the same time!

LOL - Amazing, huh?

[MrEdd]

Free trade is fine.

Intellectually, I must require you to show that any country can manage the required logistics to win a war with unrestricted free trade. Manufacture and supply of all food, equipment,and fuel in quantity delivered where needed.

If you cannot, then you do not have a defensible position.

A position which requires peace as an assumed fact is not defensible.

Years ago, a Navy veteran asked Walter Williams (who was subbing for Rush) how things would pan out in war if the entire steel industry moves to Asia. Williams kept attempting to restate the question to mean something other than military logistics.

I doubt you have an answer either.

Any person pushing unrestricted free trade with no answer to this deserves and will receive ridicule from thoughtful conservatives.

Think this through before you react in haste.

[4buttons]

LMAO

[meadsjn]

I’d love to buy a copy of this book, but the global communist policies of the past couple of decades have reduced our expenditures to bare subsistence levels. No joke.

[Ultra Sonic 007]

Ping.

[dfwgator]

Does anyone today realize that the increased tariffs brought about by the Smoot-Hawley Act contributed greatly to the Great Deppression?

Anyone?

[cripplecreek]

I find it odd that America managed to struggle through all those years before firmly attaching our lips to the socialist groin of the folks who run the WTO.

Oh where would we be without them keeping us under control?

[Clintonfatigued]

Before the advent of corporations and their takeover of the political system, there was very little support for Free Trade in the United States. The ideology that supports Free Trade does so on the basis of slogans and name-calling rather than logic and reason.

[discostu]

The answer is actually pretty simple, if we need it for a war we put it back. Prior to WWII our industrial sector really wasn’t that great, we were still mostly an agrarian society, but then came the war, and the war industrialization.

Of course the other punchline is that countries in trade with each other very rarely go to war. When your economy is dependent on country X blowing up country X is survival negative.

[Cheap_Hessian]

"Years ago, a Navy veteran asked Walter Williams (who was subbing for Rush) how things would pan out in war if the entire steel industry moves to Asia. Williams kept attempting to restate the question to mean something other than military logistics."

So you are also advocating the elimination of unions, right?

[JasonC]

Anyone have that "oh not this crap again" poster?

Smoot Halley worked out so well, you see...

[Last Dakotan]

Free trade with most of the world has been a success. Free trade with most of Asia has been an unmitigated disaster.

Besides if we didn't allow the Asian merchantilists to undervalue their currencies by buying up our debt who would buy all the T-bills floating around?

[Cheap_Hessian]

Debate Ping!

[cripplecreek]

The Iraq war is a good example. Every country with a bone to pick with us used trade in military equipment and parts as a weapon against us. China refused to sell us armor plating, switzerland suddenly stopped selling missile guidance parts we needed. We managed but had to scramble to do it.

Then there are little issues like this.

Chinese Spying a Threat, Panel Says (2007)

The panel, which was created by Congress in 2001 and has six members appointed by Democrats and six by Republicans, has been criticized for taking a hawkish stance on China in its annual reports. In the one released yesterday, it made 42 recommendations to Congress, and several of them raised questions about whether the Defense Department has been lax in overseeing the production of sensitive military technologies and gathering intelligence on the Chinese military.

The Pentagon is increasingly buying planes, weapons and military vehicles from private contractors that outsource the manufacturing to plants in China and elsewhere in Asia, the report said. But when questioned by the commission, defense officials admitted that they do not have the ability to track where the components of military equipment are made.

"As weaponry gets more and more sophisticated . . . I think well find ourselves more vulnerable for parts that are being manufactured by an adversary. It's really something the Pentagon needs to look at seriously," said commission member William A. Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which promotes free trade on behalf of businesses. Members said that the commission had never before delved so deeply into national security issues.

Pure genius. [/sarc]

[MrEdd]

I advocate right to work.

In cases where management is above board that pretty much gets rid of them.

When management is corrupt, Voila! Unions appear.

But this is a side issue. If your nation can not stand against outside forces, do unions matter? At all?

Did you ask this because you have no refutation to my original point? If you do not, how does the tactic you just attempted to employ work out ethically?

[gogogodzilla]

Created an account just to pimp your own book.

Hmmm...

[B-Chan]

Thanks for posting this! I can’t wait to read it.

[TopQuark]

Welcome to FR, Ian.

The strength of your statements raises doubts about their validity, but I'll suspend judgment until I look through the book. As it stands, the argument is NOT whether free trade is good but whether the trade being practiced is actually free. Your argument may thus be against a straw man.

In addition, you appear to confound the normative and positive aspects in your statements. It would certainly help if you differentiated them.

Again, welcome to FR.