Free Trade Is No Free Lunch

‘Thank God I am not a free-trader.” So wrote Theodore Roosevelt to Henry Cabot Lodge in 1895. As the United States advanced to first place among industrial nations (surpassing free-trade England), pro-industrial policies were central tenets of the Republican Party, along with low taxes and sound money. Yet, ironically, it is on the Republicans’ watch in our own time that the U.S. has experienced a decade of unprecedented trade deficits, transforming our country from the world’s largest creditor to its largest debtor. What is even more startling is that the Reagan Administration has been not just complacent about the trade deficit, but actively hostile toward efforts to correct it, a hostility unfortunately shared by much of the conservative movement, including national review.

In recent months, both Alan Reynolds (Feb. 27) and George Gilder (April 24) have argued against an active trade policy, indeed even against the notion that international trade rivalry exists. George Gilder reaches an extreme when he compares Japan to Santa Claus. According to Gilder, imports are gifts.

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William Hawkins

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‘Thank God I am not a free-trader.” So wrote Theodore Roosevelt to Henry Cabot Lodge in 1895. As the United States advanced to first place among industrial nations (surpassing free-trade England), pro-industrial policies were central tenets of the Republican Party, along with low taxes and sound money. Yet, ironically, it is on the Republicans’ watch in our own time that the U.S. has experienced a decade of unprecedented trade deficits, transforming our country from the world’s largest creditor to its largest debtor. What is even more startling is that the Reagan Administration has been not just complacent about the trade deficit, but actively hostile toward efforts to correct it, a hostility unfortunately shared by much of the conservative movement, including national review.

In recent months, both Alan Reynolds (Feb. 27) and George Gilder (April 24) have argued against an active trade policy, indeed even against the notion that international trade rivalry exists. George Gilder reaches an extreme when he compares Japan to Santa Claus. According to Gilder, imports are gifts.