Who does protectionism protect?
The coming election, and the populistic nature of political campaigns, focus some public interest about NAFTA and more recently about the trade agreement with Columbia. Voicing loud demand for protectionism, hoping to win the vote of specific interest groups, ignoring the simple reality that:
Producers exist to satisfy consumers; production is the means and consumption is the end. Protectionism is a policy built on the premise that consumers exist to satisfy producers.
As a side note - I’m not in favor of these trade agreements as well but not because I think that the government need to protect the “American Workers” or inefficient manufacturers but because I don’t think that the government should have role in free trade, beside of protecting it. Therefore the government role is to remove barriers, tariffs etc. as a general practice and not only when it granting political favors to satisfy other interests.
Tags: Free Trade, Protectionism, The Free Market, Trade AgreementRelated posts