Protectionism Kills

Daniel J. IkensonSome people talk about trade as though it were an end in itself. It ’s not. Trade is a means to an end.We trade so that we can specialize. We specialize so that we can produce more. We produce more so that we can consume and save more. That is how we create wealth and raise living standards. Just like electricity or machinery or expertise, trade is a tool we use to leverage our physical, mental, and creative abilities to obtain more efficiently more of the things we need and want. When we remove barriers to trade, we create greater scope for specialization, which means we can produce more value.Why would anyone want to throw sand into the gears of these machines? Before the Trump presidency, that would have been a rhetorical question. But this administration is hellbent on repatriating supply chains and exterminating imports and, like the Luddites before them, the Trump administration and its enablers are doing their best to destroy the machinery of trade. But before addressing some of the pressing life or death issues surrounding trade policy in the midst of this pandemic, let me borrow a passage about “why we trade” from a chapter I contributed to a cool new Cato Institute book titledVisions of Liberty, which was originated, organized, and edited by Aaron Ross Powell and Paul Matzko:Imagine life without trade. Imagine a life of solitude. To attend to your own subsistence, you wake each mornin...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs