“two consecutive presidents, first Donald Trump and then Joe Biden, wedded to economic nationalism. “When we use taxpayers’ dollars to rebuild America, we are going to do it by buying American: buy American products, support American jobs,” Biden vowed in the recent State of the Union address. He’s unlikely to get much pushback from the public; while support for free trade rose under Trump it has since declined, according to Gallup. More Americans (61 percent) see trade as good for economic growth than see it as a threat (35 percent), but the numbers swing more as a matter of partisan politics than according to principled commitment.
That’s a shame because free-trade advocates are correct. While a strong case can be made that free trade is a basic human right involving consensual relations among individuals, it’s also a miraculous cure for misery. Over the last half-century or so, economists have rediscovered comparative advantage and that “trade openness is a necessary—even if not sufficient—condition for economic growth and reducing poverty,” as Pierre Lemieux wrote for the Cato Institute’s Regulation in 2020.”
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“Economic and financial sanctions may cause Russia pain and add to the cost of invading Ukraine. But as governments around the world raise barriers and try to insulate themselves from future uses of weaponized trade and finance, the result is certain to be a world that is poorer and less free.”