America was founded on the policy of protection for American industries. The first bill of our new congress, after approval of the presidential seal of the United States, was a tariff on various imported items. Our founding fathers from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were all protectionists, and found no negative relationship between high tariffs and economic growth. For the United States, free trade equaled failure while protectionism equaled prosperity.
We see the same evidence today. The United States practices free trade with a protectionist China and we run a huge trade deficit with China. China’s annual economic growth hovers around 10% while America’s economic growth languishes between 3% and 4%. China can’t figure out what to do with its trillion dollars of reserves while the United States can’t figure out what to do with its nine trillion dollar debt.
America can’t continue to ignore the fact that our manufacturing base is deteriorating and good paying jobs are going overseas to relocate in cheap-labor markets. We may be able to buy some things cheaper as consumers, but as workers we are experiencing falling wages at the same time. With free trade, we can only hope that prices fall faster and farther than wages to get ahead. We should have policy that puts upward pressure on wages and stops putting American producers at a competitive disadvantage with foreign producers. That policy is protectionism. It’s worked for us before, and it can work for us again. Teddy Roosevelt said “I thank God I’m not a free trader.” I’m thankful I’m not one either.
When possible I buy American products for several reasons. We have already lost too many good paying jobs to cheaper labor markets. For unskilled workers when manufacturing leaves the US those people are forced into minimum wage jobs where they can’t support themselves or their families. Second if the trade were equal then it would be fair. We can’t compete with wages in third world countries. I have been to China and Thailand, there is no way we can work for what they are paid there. I visited a factory in Thailand in 1996 where the workers were paid piece work. When they got good at what they did they made forty eight cents an hour, ten hour days five days a week. We exceed hundreds of billions of dollars in trade debt every year but not enough people seem to care well maybe after it’s too late.