Free trade raises standards of living

   I find it amazing that there are still people in life who favor trade restrictions and trade wars. If there is anything credible economists agree on, almost 150 years after the publication of Adam Smith’s treatise The Wealth of Nations, it is that free trade is a good thing.

  In every trade, both sides benefit. There is a simple reason for that. Each side is giving up something he values less for something he values more. Thus, at the very moment of the trade, both sides have improved their own respective economic condition. The trade has enabled both parties to the trade to raise their own standard of living.

The 'Thank You' system

  When a person is leaving a restaurant or any other retail establishment, who should be saying “Thank you”—the seller or the buyer?

  The answer is: Both. That’s because they are both benefiting from the transaction from their own individual, subjective perspectives. That is, they are each giving up something they value less for something they value more. Thus, at the moment of the trade, they have both improved their state of being, from their own individual, subjective perspective.

Free trade raises standards of living

  I find it amazing that there are still people in life who favor trade restrictions and trade wars. If there is anything credible economists agree on, almost 145 years after the publication of Adam Smith’s treatise The Wealth of Nations, it is that free trade is a good thing.

Americans should adopt unilateral free trade

  Given the ongoing destruction of liberty and prosperity from President Trump’s trade wars, tariffs, sanctions, and embargoes, it’s time to think at a higher level, one that goes beyond mere criticism of Trump’s trade antics. It’s time to think in terms of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government, all of which translates to the idea of unilateral free trade.

  What does unilateral free trade mean? It means that the U.S. government should simply lift, dismantle, abolish, repeal, and end all of its tariffs, trade restrictions, sanctions, embargoes, import quotas, and trade wars. No meetings. No negotiations. No demands. No “free trade” agreements. Just free the American people to travel wherever they want and trade with whomever they want.

Trump’s trade wars destroy our freedom

  Given President Trump’s trade wars against China and other countries, the natural tendency is to focus on Chinese and American producers and consumers as the victims of Trump’s destructive trade folly.

  Keep in mind that in every trade, both sides benefit by improving their respective standard of living. That’s because in every trade, both traders give up something they value less for something they value more. Thus, standards of living can rise through the simple act of trade.

Free trade: A key to a rising standard of living

  Trade is a key to a rising standard of living in society, especially for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.

  In every exchange, both sides benefit from their own individual subjective perspective. That’s because, at the moment of the trade, they are both giving up something they value less for something they value more. Thus, trade enables people to improve their standard of living. The greater the ability of people to trade, the better off they are.

Seven implications of protectionism

  In a speech on the campaign trail in 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said about Hillary Clinton and trade,

    Hillary Clinton unleashed a trade war against the American worker when she supported one terrible deal after another, from NAFTA, to China to South Korea. It doesn’t matter. No matter where she went, the American worker was hurt and you’ll be hurt worse than ever before if she becomes president of the United States. That I can tell you.

  He then promised that a Trump administration would “end that war by getting a fair deal for the American people and the American worker.” “The era of economic surrender will finally be over,” he said. “You’re not going to see it anymore.”

  Donald Trump has now done what he accused Hillary Clinton of doing: He has unleashed a trade war.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Show me your immigration plan

  Whenever liberals or conservatives tell you that they favor immigration controls, one way to stop them dead in their tracks is to say to them: Show me your plan.

  They will stare at you blankly. They will be dumbfounded. They won’t know what to say. It is likely that they will simply respond with something like, “A nation has the right to control its borders.”

  Okay, but what is your plan for making your system of immigration controls work? What is your plan for finally bringing an end to the ongoing, never-ending “immigration crisis” that has lasted for at least 70 years?

Jacob G. Hornberger: Trump’s dictatorial and destructive tariffs

  It’s amazing that it is still necessary to instruct U.S. presidents on the damage that tariffs do to people. You would think that by the time a person becomes a president of a country, he would be wise enough to know this. Even many progressives and conservatives have finally joined up with us libertarians in opposition to tariffs.

  The subject arises with President Trump’s unilateral decision to impose tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines. The targeted countries are China and South Korea (yes, the country that Trump and the U.S. national-security state say that they’re interested in protecting from North Korea).

Jacob G. Hornberger: A basic principle about trade

  In every trade, both sides benefit from their own individual perspective. The reason is simple: Each side is giving up something he values less for something he values more.

  That means, then, that trade, in and of itself, raises people’s standard of living. At the moment of the trade, both traders are better off than they were before the trade.

Richard M. Ebeling: Trade deficits don’t matter – unless caused by government

  In 2016, the United States exported goods and services equal to $2.209 trillion, and imported goods and services with a market value of $2.712 trillion. The balance of trade deficit for 2016, therefore, came to $502.3 billion. The trade deficit represented a little over 10 percent of the over $4.92 trillion of total trade in goods and services between America and the rest of the world. And was only about 2.7 percent of the entire $18.56 trillion Gross Domestic Product of the United States in 2016.

  But listening to the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and others in his administration, it would be easy to assume that America’s balance of trade deficit is causing market misery and economic harm to the people of the United States.

Laurence M. Vance: Will tariffs make America great again?

  If there is one issue that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is outspoken about, it is U.S. trade policy.

  He says:

       You only have to look at our trade deficit to see that we are being taken to the cleaners by our trading partners. We need tougher negotiations, not protectionist walls around America. We need to ensure that foreign markets are as open to our products as our country is to theirs. Our long-term interests require that we cut better deals with our world trading partners.

       Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t win anymore. We don’t beat China in trade. We don’t beat Japan, with their millions and millions of cars coming into this country, in trade. We can’t beat Mexico, at the border or in trade.

Laurence M. Vance: Free trade is fair trade

  As relayed by Harvard economics professor and chairman of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, “The Princeton economist Alan Blinder once proposed Murphy’s Law of economic policy: ‘Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least and disagree most vehemently.’”

Jacob G. Hornberger: The Virtues of free trade

  I find it absolutely amazing that there are still people around who look with disfavor on free trade. A recent example occurred in the New York Times just last Sunday in an op-ed entitled “Our Misplaced Faith in Free Trade” by Jeff Madrick. According to Madrick, “free trade creates winners and losers — and American workers have been among the losers. Free trade has been a major (but not the only) factor behind the erosion in wages and job security among American workers. It has created amazing prosperity — but mostly for those at the top.”

Jacob G. Hornberger: Trade-deficit nonsense

  Do you ever wish that the federal government would stop publishing data on the so-called trade deficit? It would be one of the best things the government could ever do. At the very least, it would bring an end to the nonsensical obsessiveness over the trade deficit that characterizes so many mainstream economists.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Free trade or fair trade?

  Statists on the left side of the political spectrum oftentimes attack "free-trade agreements" like NAFTA by claiming that they aren’t "fair-trade agreements." Free trade is fine, they love to say, but only if it’s fair. When they’re not fair, the "free-trade" agreements inevitably impose onerous conditions on workers, conditions that only government can rectify.

  There are at least three big problems, however, with this statist analysis.