Free trade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Free trade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The USA is not applying free trade theories. We are taxing and subsidizing every industry and foreign imports in all the wrong ways.

We should apply a higher tax on gasoline derived from foreign oil to support green investments and conservation programs. This would reduce the need to fight foreign wars for oil, and we could pull out of Iraq. We should tax natural gas to support green investments and end the war in Afghanistan.

But if the history of imperialism and empire building suggests anything, its that the rest of the leading nations must do it as well, or we will be seen as giving up territory.

The Israel and Palestine states are the tough one. The British created the Jewish territory and was forced to protect it. Later became a nation and had to fend for its self. Now it is surrounded by various peoples with 100 years of animosity after the French, British, Russian, and American governments and corporations have plundered and depleted their land and sea of resources while imposing sanctions and preventing food and medical supplies from entering. Their own local capitalists have been their own domestic enemy while doing business with us.

>>>>>>>

In Kicking Away the Ladder, development economist Ha-Joon Chang reviews the history of free trade policies and economic growth, and notes that many of the now-industrialized countries had significant barriers to trade throughout their history. The United States and Britain, sometimes considered to be the homes of free trade policy, employed protectionism to varying degrees at all times. Britain abolished the Corn Laws, which restricted import of grain, in 1846 in response to domestic pressures, and it reduced protectionism for manufactures in the mid 19th century, when its technological advantage was at its height, but tariffs on manufactured products had returned to 23% by 1950. The United States maintained weighted average tariffs on manufactured products of approximately 40–50% up until the 1950s, augmented by the natural protectionism of high transportation costs in the 19th century.^[10] The most consistent practitioners of free trade have been Switzerland, the Netherlands, and to a lesser degree Belgium.^[11] Chang describes the export-oriented industrialization policies of the Asian Tigers as "far more sophisticated and fine-tuned than their historical equivalents".^[12]