A Quote by Walter Block
Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Free trade is the only philosophy compatible with international peace and prosperity.
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For the only way in which a durable peace can be created is by world-wide restoration of economic activity and international trade.
The message from history is so blatantly obvious - that free trade causes mutual prosperity while protectionism causes poverty - that it seems incredible that anybody ever thinks otherwise. There is not a single example of a country opening its borders to trade and ending up poorer.
If a trade deficit is determined solely by rates of savings and investment, then the U.S. trade deficit will be impervious to a get-tough trade policy. Slapping higher tariffs on imports will only deprive foreigners of the dollars they would have earned by selling in the U.S. market.
Though editorialists at The New York Times and The Washington Post still don't get it, most Democrats in Congress finally do: Today's trade disputes are no longer mostly about tariffs, quotas, or free entry of goods. They are about the ground rules for capitalism. Are there to be only property rights? What about the other rights that liberal democracies have fought for since the 1880s?
[Economic restrictions] is one of the elements that is destabilising the world economic order that was at one time created largely by the United States itself at the dawn of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that was later transformed into the World Trade Organisation.
I support free trade. Donald Trump supports free trade.Trade means jobs. Jobs in the United States, jobs in my home state of Indiana are supported by international exports.
In a world dependent on international trade and commerce, and staggering under a heavy load of international debt, no policy is more destructive than protectionism. It cuts off markets, eliminates trade, causes unemployment in the export industries all over the world, depresses the prices of export commodities, especially farm products of the United States. It is the crowning folly of government intervention.
Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers.
What generates war is the economic philosophy of nationalism: embargoes, trade and foreign exchange controls, monetary devaluation, etc. The philosophy of protectionism is a philosophy of war.
[Donald Trump rhetoric]this is a common rhetorical line used by people who are against free trade that say, we're in favor of trade; we just don't like any of the free trade deals that America has actually signed onto.
Trade wars arent started by countries appealing to respected, independent trade authorities. Rather, trade wars begin when one country decides to violate international trade rules to undercut another countrys industries.
We spoke about economic sanctions only recently in Lima, within the framework of APEC. Almost all the leaders represented at APEC (the Asia Pacific region), Pacific countries, spoke about the same thing, namely, that we are going through a very acute crisis in world trade, international trade, related, among other things, to restrictions on the markets of certain countries.
Inflationism, however, is not an isolated phenomenon. It is only one piece in the total framework of politico-economic and socio-philosophical ideas of our time. Just as the sound money policy of gold standard advocates went hand in hand with liberalism, free trade, capitalism and peace, so is inflationism part and parcel of imperialism, militarism, protectionism, statism and socialism.
Tariffs are only one tool in enforcing our global trade policy.
Trade wars aren't started by countries appealing to respected, independent trade authorities. Rather, trade wars begin when one country decides to violate international trade rules to undercut another country's industries.
The EU has made it very clear that for frictionless trade and no tariffs on goods there is a mechanism for achieving that, but there are consequences. There are trade-offs that will have to happen.
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