To: Professor Don Boudreaux, George Mason University
From: Patrick Barron
Date: July 21, 2024
Dear Don,
I read your latest Café Hayek post “On Making the Case for Free Trade” in which you respond to the many objections that free trade unfairly impacts those whose livelihoods were harmed by goods and services from overseas.
I have a thought experiment. Let’s assume that an inexpensive cancer preventative process of some kind is invented by someone overseas. Of course, it will destroy thousands of highly paid healthcare worker jobs almost overnight…IF ALLOWED TO BE IMPORTED OR ADOPTED BY AMERICANS. Let’s further assume that the revolutionary process is invented by someone in a country that we currently classify as a despised enemy of America, perhaps North Korea or Iran. Let’s go even further and assume that this country will not allow its citizens to purchase goods and services from America. Would we deny Americans access to this new process? I should hope not.
This may be a radical and unrealistic scenario; nevertheless, almost every day I see people waiting at bus stops in the heat, humidity, snow, and rain. I’m certain that many of these people would be able to afford cheap Chinese cars, if such cars were allowed into the US without prohibitively expensive tariffs, etc. Of course, the very fact that tariffs are required to keep cheap Chinese made cars from being purchased by Americans proves our point that these cars are preferred over American cars or cars built by people in currently friendly nations. No tariffs were required to keep out cheaply made cars from Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end to the Cold War.
Warmest Regards,
Pat
© Patrick Barron 2024 Website
