How do you feel about free trade? (i.e. cafta, nafta, wto)?

Question

How do you feel about free trade? (i.e. cafta, nafta, wto)?

Answer 1

It's cool

Answer 2

Truly free trade has been proven over and over again to be a good thing for all nations. Read the works of Friedman, or read "The Wealth of Nations".

From the Wiki on free trade:

Free trade is a market model in which the trade of goods and services between or within countries flows unhindered by government-imposed restrictions. Such government interventions generally increase costs of goods and services to both consumers and producers. Interventions include taxes and tariffs, non-tariff barriers, such as regulatory legislation and quotas, and even inter-government managed trade agreements such as NAFTA and CAFTA (contrary to their formal titles.) Free trade opposes all such interventions. Trade liberalization entails reductions to these trade barriers in an effort for relatively unimpeded transactions

One of the strongest arguments for free trade was made by classical economist David Ricardo in his analysis of comparative advantage. Comparative advantage explains how trade will benefit both parties (countries, regions, or individuals) if they have different opportunity costs of production.

Free trade can be contrasted with protectionism, which is the economic policy of restricting trade between nations. Trade may be restricted by high tariffs on imported or exported goods, restrictive quotas, a variety of restrictive government regulations designed to discourage imports, and anti-dumping laws designed to protect domestic industries from foreign take-over or competition.

Free trade is a term in economics and government that includes:

    * trade of goods without taxes (including tariffs) or other trade barriers (e.g., quotas on imports or subsidies for producers)

    * trade in services without taxes or other trade barriers

    * The absence of trade-distorting policies (such as taxes, subsidies, regulations or laws) that give some firms, households or factors of production an advantage over others

    * Free access to markets

    * Free access to market information

    * Inability of firms to distort markets through government-imposed monopoly or oligopoly power

    * The free movement of labor between and within countries

    * The free movement of capital between and within countries

---edit----

TO the poster "beneath me", freedom to move is essential, but it isn't a requirement. I've moved all over the US and Europe in my trade and have continually grown in power, influence, and wealth, thank you very much. If someone chooses to stay in a stagnant place for lower wages, that is their right as well, and I respect it. But don't blame free trade for choices that limit oneself.

Answer 3

I don't think it's "free trade".

It's "managed trade" designed to benefit the global elite at the expense of the middle class and poor people in the countries involved.

Ron Paul puts it best...

The Central America Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA, will be the source of intense political debate in Washington this summer. The House of Representatives will vote on CAFTA ratification in June, while the Senate likely will vote in July.

I oppose CAFTA for a very simple reason: it is unconstitutional. The Constitution clearly grants Congress alone the authority to regulate international trade. The plain text of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 is incontrovertible. Neither Congress nor the President can give this authority away by treaty, any more than they can repeal the First Amendment by treaty. This fundamental point, based on the plain meaning of the Constitution, cannot be overstated. Every member of Congress who votes for CAFTA is voting to abdicate power to an international body in direct violation of the Constitution.

We don’t need government agreements to have free trade. We merely need to lower or eliminate taxes on the American people, without regard to what other nations do. Remember, tariffs are simply taxes on consumers. Americans have always bought goods from abroad; the only question is how much our government taxes us for doing so. As economist Henry Hazlitt explained, tariffs simply protect politically-favored special interests at the expense of consumers, while lowering wages across the economy as a whole. Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and countless other economists have demolished every fallacy concerning tariffs, proving conclusively that unilateral elimination of tariffs benefits the American people. We don’t need CAFTA or any other international agreement to reap the economic benefits promised by CAFTA supporters, we only need to change our own harmful economic and tax policies. Let the rest of the world hurt their citizens with tariffs; if we simply reduce tariffs and taxes at home, we will attract capital and see our economy flourish.

It is absurd to believe that CAFTA and other trade agreements do not diminish American sovereignty. When we grant quasi-governmental international bodies the power to make decisions about American trade rules, we lose sovereignty plain and simple. I can assure you firsthand that Congress has changed American tax laws for the sole reason that the World Trade Organization decided our rules unfairly impacted the European Union. Hundreds of tax bills languish in the House Ways and Means committee, while the one bill drafted strictly to satisfy the WTO was brought to the floor and passed with great urgency last year.

The tax bill in question is just the tip of the iceberg. The quasi-judicial regime created under CAFTA will have the same power to coerce our cowardly legislature into changing American laws in the future. Labor and environmental rules are inherently associated with trade laws, and we can be sure that CAFTA will provide yet another avenue for globalists to impose the Kyoto Accord and similar agreements on the American people. CAFTA also imposes the International Labor Organization’s manifesto, which could have been written by Karl Marx, on American business. I encourage every conservative and libertarian who supports CAFTA to read the ILO declaration and consider whether they still believe the treaty will make America more free.

CAFTA means more government! Like the UN, NAFTA, and the WTO, it represents another stone in the foundation of a global government system. Most Americans already understand they are governed by largely unaccountable forces in Washington, yet now they face having their domestic laws influenced by bureaucrats in Brussels, Zurich, or Mexico City.

CAFTA and other international trade agreements do not represent free trade. Free trade occurs in the absence of government interference in the flow of goods, while CAFTA represents more government in the form of an international body. It is incompatible with our Constitution and national sovereignty, and we don’t need it to benefit from international trade.

June 7, 2005

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

Answer 4

there is mixed advantages and disadvantages about free trade, developing nations with lower cost structure produce product at cheap cost enter the higher cost economy, on the other hand nations with big capital using high technology and high capital investment, brand name, protecting the business.

the economy is intergrating, and no way to stop it.

but some time the older companies in bigger nations with access to capital can have tendency to bully the smaller companies, new companies at poorer countries.

the high capital nations have access to funds to develop brand some are clean true smart company that work hard ; but some bigger corrupt giants companies have connections with underworld / built by mafia; taking easy money and can be nasty excecising the power they have.

Answer 5

First of all the Changena poster (one before me) needs his head examined.  

Secondly, I think it needs to be scrapped.  First it starts off with free trade and then it ends up being a political organisation.  

Also, the previous poster (Chagena) mentioned "free movement of labour", ok, I'm sure a lot of Americans would really warm up to that idea when they find themselves unable to find a job in the country they were born in because foreigners were taking their job for less wages.  Yeah, that really sounds fair doesn't it.

Free trade is good.... for the neoconsevatives.

Answer 6

Apparently you bought the moniker 'free trade'. Those 'trade' agreements as they like to call them, are just stepping stones to make it easier for the world's wealthiest individuals to have more control over world economy.

Study up on this subject.. it Will scare the c**p out of you. Unless your name is Rothschild or Rockefeller