this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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“Free trade” means letting everyone do what they’re best at and then exchange the goods they produce. This is so that everybody is focused on what works best in their country, everything is done as well and as cheaply as possible. However this makes no guarantee about any one country’s ability, at the end of the day, to stand alone without dependencies on others for vital goods. In fact if anything it works against that.
I don’t know why Trump talks about globalism as some Democrat thing. It’s his own party that has been driving for free trade since forever.
"Free trade" means big countries dominating smaller ones. In what way can a small Caribbean nation compete with the US for example? Say they have a self sustaining economy. They have farms to feed their people, and textile mills to clothe them. Free trade opens their markets up, and they are quickly overwhelmed by the mega corps and their economies of scale. Now local industry is driven out of business or subsumed by foreign competitors. Maybe tourism? Multinationals buy up all the hotels, beaches and restaurants. Locals get minimum wage jobs serving and cleaning. Any attempt at "protectionism" incurs penalties under the free trade agreements.
If that were the case there would not be Plaza accords, dismemberment of Angstrom and the absolute annihilation of industry in the post-soviet states. "Free trade" is and always has been a fanciful banner for wealth extraction
Free trade is the best system for 90 % of an economy. I will take a dump on Trump any day, maybe twice , but having a small capacity to build your own silicon chip is mandatory in case of a military conflict. Covid wasn’t a planned military conflict and first world economies couldn’t produce mask, gown… and luckily the virus wasn’t so deadly and only a small % of the population died.
I am Canadian… by any free trade perspective it looks like we should buy our milk from countries with less harsh winter… but then we would be on our knee if an idiot decide to bully us with a duty tax.
There should be free trade for 90 % of a country gdp and elected officials can change their list of excluded 10 % every few years.
Are you saying that 10% of an economy is vital goods and the other 90% is not? Not that I have any numbers on this but 10% seems low to me.
10 % isn’t based on anything but let’s imagine: 2-4 % military 1 % communication infrastructure, media and unbiased information 2-4 % healthcare 2-4 % food. You quickly get to 10%. Too big and you loose the benefit of free trade.
Could you try doing the same with the 90%? if life’s essentials are so easily paid for I am wondering what you think the rest is going to?
I don't know about the numbers you present, but absolutely agree that some industries are just worth supporting, from a government perspective. Cannot be reliant on a geopolitical enemy for goods that allow your country to continue to function.
I think Trump losing us allies is a travesty, but there's no guarantee during a global conflict you can get items from said allies.
All abstract ideas are good, and those with less assumptions are more abstract, but the problem is - nobody wants purely abstract ideas.
Pretty Victorian conditions in factories producing all those nice things we have, for example, would not be acceptable in USA.
Which means that this abstract idea is somehow mixed and divided with a border with another abstract idea.
Differently in one place and in another.
OK, I'm using a boring and long way to say that some things have to be balanced. Bad labor conditions allow cheaper production, skewing competitive balance. Tariffs or something like that can in theory balance it out back again.
EDIT: And yes, both globalism and American conservatism and what not are only in appearances divided along party lines, in fact they seem to be evenly split. Like with hedge funds, that's what makes your two-party system stable.
Trump is a former democrat. Many in his administration are former democrats. Trump isn't a liberal. Both Republicans and Democrats are liberal. Trump is a nationalist. Trump is not a liberal Republican.