It is worth noting that while we look to the constitution for guidance on today’s problems, the founding fathers approved tariffs and other federal controls of trade.

Hamilton and his mercantile school wanted to use the government to ally with selected business interests and he sought protection for those industries. We have used trade protection as a leverage ever since.

Hamilton, considered to be the father of the Republicans, sought to protect our domestic business interests from overseas competition. We have sought protection to help the startup industries of a new nation and to protect our aging industries from foreign startups without our social legacy costs. We have tried to subvert the free trade principle by lame linguistics, substituting ‘fair trade’ for ‘free trade’.

We used to claim it was unfair to trade freely because our international competition received massive supports from their government. We have also adorned our industries with tax breaks and subsidies and the recent bailouts, enacted and pending, ceratinly subverts any free market moral superiority.

While the recent vintage of Republicans (i.e. since Goldwater) have promoted free trade, and made some progress toward that goal, it was Clinton that signed NAFTA and faced criticism from both parties (and Ross Perot) for doing so.

Bush the second used VRA’s (voluntary restraint agreements) early in his administration to protect the steel industry. Obama often campaigned against free trade but this may have been simple pandering in the rust belt.

I do not know which party supports free trade. Perhaps neither one does. This is unfortunate.

Few voters understand the benefits of free trade and the principle of comparative advantage. It takes a pretty decent professor to explain it to educated college students and it certainly does not fit within superficial sound bites during a political campaign.

It is tempting to focus on a single party that suffers from the seemingly unfair competition while ignoring the parties that benefit from better products and better prices.

Voters have an anti trade bias and an anti market bias. They tend to believe the world of business is a zero sum game and if it is good for one party it must be bad for another, which they assume to be us.

Besides creating numerous economic benefits, there are greater reasons fro free trade. It is a far better way to reduce world poverty than loans, which often end up in the hands of a privileged few. We should open our doors to products from the poorest countries to help them restore their own economies.

But far more important, free trade is a critical component to world peace. We do not want to war against our suppliers and our customers. I am less concerned about China’s military prowess if we are its biggest customer than I would be otherwise.

Even the oil we get from hostile exporters improves the situation over us having no leverage at all. And that problem is more exacerbated by restrictions on domestic energy production than restrictions on imports.

Free trade is a cornerstone of a sound economy and a peaceful nation even if it was not ordained in the constitution. I wish one of the two parties would support it.

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