Shooting down foolishness about protectionism:

You ask why I cannot “be more practical about trade.” My answer is that unconditional support for unconditional free trade is the most practical policy that is practically available. Unconditional free trade is far more practical than is your proposed alternative of empowering government officials to decide when, for how long, and to what degree trade should be free.

Free trade is simply consumers spending their money as they – rather than as government officials – wish. Yes: changes in the pattern of consumer demands destroy some jobs.

But this reality is true whenever consumers change their spending pattern. It is as true, for example, when consumers shift their demands from domestically produced steel to domestically produced aluminum as when they shift their demands from domestically produced steel to foreign-produced steel.

Anytime consumers change their spending pattern some incumbent producers suffer – and others gain. There’s absolutely nothing about freedom to trade across political borders that uniquely “destroys” (or creates) jobs. [Italics not added]

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