For generations, the default position of the Republican Party and most conservatives has been to unequivocally support “free trade.” Two recent columns illustrate this fealty on the Right to “free trade.” First, North Dakota State Senator and farmer Terry Wanzek criticized Donald Trump in “Free Trade Is Good for American Farmers Like Me” in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) noting that Trump “called for a 'privilege’ tax that would slap a 10% tariff on all foreign-made products that enter the U.S….[which] puts American farmers last [as] other national would retaliate immediately with their own taxes.” Next, WSJ columnist Andy Kessler in “Tariffs Are for Losers” aims his ire at Ohio U.S. Senator J.D. Vance and Trump. Kessler spends his column lecturing readers on the theoretical pros of “free trade” and the cons of tariffs.
While I largely agree with the principle that free trade should be America’s goal when it comes to trading with other countries, as an Ohioan residing in a state that has been ground zero in China’s mercantilist trade war since 2000, I’m also troubled by both the impact alleged free trade has on Main Street Americans and whether free trade with other countries is actually free—meaning, bilateral open markets without constraints. As I wrote in July 2018 in “America’s Instant Gratification Mentality Undermines Foreign Policy Efforts,"
Doctrinaire conservatives are quick to lecture Trump and the rest of us on egghead lessons about why trade deficits don’t matter, why tariffs hurt those who use them, and why emergency aid to farmers is bad policy. They raise the ghost of Herbert Hoover and 1929 to scare us. For the sake of the argument, just assume everything they said is totally right…in the short term.
The reality is, however, not one trading partner will agree to lower their burdens on our exports unless they are forced to do it. The French will continue to use the European Union to protect their farmers, the Germans will continue to protect their high-end manufacturers, the Canadians will keep our milk prices too high, the Mexicans will lure companies with cheap labor, and the Chinese will steal our intellectual property and make it hard for our companies to succeed there.
It is not surprising that those countries love the current system.
I respectfully submit to my colleagues on the Right that they are doing more to undermine Trump and his efforts to improve the global trading system then the fiercest liberal-progressive on the Left. Why? Because, if by aggressively using tariffs in the short term, Trump can secure new trade deals for the long term that lower the burdens on U.S. exports to the rest of the world while keeping the burdens on imports low, then U.S. companies and their workers will face a more level playing field allowing them to compete fairly with other countries in the international market. (Emphasis added)
I’m not aware of a single country in which American companies and farmers have total access without constraints. Not only don’t we have total access to foreign markets, but in many cases foreign countries use regulations and lawfare to hurt U.S. companies, especially our technology companies. They may try to wrap those governmental attacks on our companies in high falutin language about consumer protection and competition, but really those attacks are simply because American technology companies dominate globally when it comes to creating innovative products and services. It seems Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are constantly engaged in litigation with the European Union which is used by Member States like France and Germany to limit our trading opportunities.
The reality is we may have to engage in trade war actions like using tariffs to get foreign counties to come to the table to strike true free trade deals. Without hitting them with economic weapons, they will have no incentive to come to negotiate bilateral trade deals without constraints. If Americans want a real global free trade system, we must make it temporarily painful for our trading partners to discriminate against our goods and services by making their goods and services more costly. Trump was on the path to do that before he was stopped by the Left’s cheating and election fraud and by China’s release of the Wuhan virus in the West literally just days after Trump forced them to concede trade ground in the Phase One trade deal he cut with China.
In a zero sum world, sometimes the smartest path ahead is to take one step back.
