Say Anything Blog

Of course, just because the whimsical opinion of the masses right now is that free trade is bad for our economy doesn’t mean it’s true.

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 51 percent of the Americans questioned view foreign trade as a threat to the economy — the first time in a CNN poll that a majority of respondents report holding negative views on free trade.

That compares to only 35 percent of those asked who felt that free trade posed a threat to the economy in 2000, and 48 percent who felt it was a threat in 2006.

Now only four in 10 the Americans questioned say free trade presents an opportunity for economic growth, a sentiment that clearly makes the issue a challenge for McCain, especially in the crucial Rust Belt states most affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs over the last decade.

If anything, this is evidence of how effective protectionist interests (unions, Buchananites, Ron Paul supporters paranoid about North American Unions, etc.) have been in their rhetoric against free trade.  And scandals about bad produce from Mexico, and toys with lead paint from China, haven’t helped.  But really, free trade has positive ramifications for America both economic and diplomatic.

On the economic side of things, forget about short-sighted and naive rhetoric about jobs being “shipped overseas” and think about what trade with other countries does for you during a trip to the store.  Let’s say you’re looking for a lawnmower.  In a protectionist America you’d go to the store and find only American-made mowers.  But what if none of those mowers met your specifications for price and quality?  Well, you’d be stuck having to pick one anyway because you have to mow your lawn, right?

In a free-trade world your choices are greatly expanded.  Instead of just shopping for American-made mowers, you can shop for mowers made all over the world, and thus you have a much greater chance of finding one that best suits your needs and price range.

This impact of choice would be especially apparent in the consumer electronics industry.  Can you imagine how much your average television would cost you if you could only choose from televisions made in America?  It would cost you much, much more and thus you’d have less money left over for other things.  Like maybe taking your wife out to a nice dinner, or going to a movie.

Put simply, free trade increases our quality of life by bringing cheaper, foreign-made goods to our markets.  Those cheaper goods allow us to get what we want with more money left over.  It literally makes our dollars go further, and without it we’d be a lot worse off.

Diplomatically speaking, trading with a nation is perhaps one of the best assurances we have that we’ll never go to war with that nation.  A good deal of articles have been written about China’s fearsome, and growing-stronger, military.  And while that is cause for concern, one bit of solace we can take in Chinese-American relations is that China’s economy is almost totally dependent on ours.  Without America China goes bankrupt.  If China were to attack America the American market would suddenly be shut off to Chinese goods.  And then where would those goods be sold?  Does anyone think that France or Great Britain or Russia would suddenly increase their consumption of DVD players and laptop computers to keep China’s industries afloat?

Even if they wanted to it wouldn’t be possible.  Which is why China isn’t ever going to attack America as long as we’re their trading partner.  And the same goes with pretty much every other country in the world that America trades with.

Put simply: Free trade is the path not just to economic success, but also world peace.  Or, at least, a more peaceful world than we have now.