Why don’t individuals give up on outdated ideas about “free” trade, which multiple decades of evidence has proven is a disastrous failure? Why don’t more people oppose this horrendous idea and realize its impact on their life?

It is a proven scientific fact that when confronted with new ideas or challenges to one’s beliefs and values, individuals will do their best to resist and refute anything that threatens their preconceived notions and core identity. Despite the most logical argument in the world, and all the statistics found on this website about how our trade policy (or lack thereof) is destroying the nation, without framing the argument appropriately, the human mind will reject it.

However, the problems with the way we conduct international trade in this nation are so vast and expansive, there are multiple avenues of attack for anyone professing to be a “free” trader. First of all, the reason why the word “free” is always in quotation marks is because it really isn’t “free”. Our current system is actually leaving ourselves defenseless while our rivals use currency manipulation, subsidies and other dirty tricks to take advantage of us.

Also if you support the democracy that people have fought and died for over the course of 235 years to develop and protect, you cannot possibly support trade pacts that usurp our sovereignty to foreign tribunals to decide if our laws are appropriate. It is against the very notion of democracy that an unelected court thousands of miles away can decide if your local food safety laws are appropriate, or if you should owe a company a fine for hurting its profits.

Lastly, anyone who is a true patriot should be alarmed by the hollowing of America’s industrial base by foreign companies, and the threats that action poses to our national security. The National Director of Intelligence started a review a few months ago to determine whether our declining manufacturing sector is national security issue, as we are becoming more and more dependent on foreign nations for critical military needs, the consequences of which are frightening.

People may or may not necessarily be fools for succumbing to the flawed arguments of “free” traders, but no matter what their passion is, our disastrous trade policy negatively affects their quality of life. Our failed trade policy affects everything from your neighbor’s job to the safety of the food you eat. That’s why we must work together to craft sensible strategies that correct these issues, instead of letting multi-national corporations and foreign governments take advantage of us.

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