Let's Never Forget: Free Trade Requires Free Nations
According to a report from the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of Tues. Sept. 24, 2024, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has "made it abundantly clear that diplomacy and free trade should be America’s tools for reducing tensions, not more counterproductive heavy-handed government mandates and sanctions."
Let's not forget to emphatically add, that free trade among free people is not only a good thing, it's a great thing.
However, if you’re trading with someone who lives in a country ruled by totalitarian fascists labelling themselves Communists or "Democrats," it’s anything but free trade.
By the way, you’re deluding yourself if you don’t agree.
By its very name, free trade denotes free individuals doing the trading.
In America, at least under President Donald Trump and the better members of the GOP, you are free, at least in relative terms.
Not so for people living under the socialist regimes of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, and Japan, or under the totalitarian regime of China.
They are not free.
They operate only with permission of their governments and on the terms set by those governments. To be clear, Sen. Paul and other free market advocates are mistaken when they uncritically accept the premise that what we have is free trade in a world with overwhelmingly unfree countries.
Oppose Trump’s tariffs if you wish, but opposing them on the false assumption that free trade is universal doesn't comport with global harsh realities.
Trading and dealing with people in totalitarian countries is like dealing with the Mob.
It’s not that the people in those countries are necessarily bad; but their rulers most certainly can be — and frequently are.
China is not a free nation, it's totalitarian.
Workers in China are borderline (if not actual) slaves. They work not for their own benefit, but their rulers' welfare.
They operate only with the consent of the government.
If you reside in a free country, it’s an absurd delusion to claim you are "trading" with slaves. You are never trading with workers or businesspeople in a Communist or fascist country, like China; it’s all an illusion perpetrated by the totalitarian government.
The only appropriate policy of a free country toward a slave country’s government is to do everything possible (economically or even militarily) to undermine or destroy that government.
At the least, you don’t trade with them, because it’s no different than doing business with the Mob. It will come back to bite you. Everything Trump is doing to the Chinese government at present is morally justified and long overdue.
Before you get free trade, you must first have free nations. I’ll again state the obvious: China is not free.
Nobody would say that Ayn Rand, the author of the classic "Atlas Shrugged" and an unyielding defender of unhampered capitalism and individual rights, is opposed to free trade.
Yet . . . during the Cold War she supported a form of economic intervention against the Soviet Union even stronger than what President Trump is doing today with China.
At the height of the Cold War, Playboy magazine asked Ayn Rand, "Would you actively advocate that the United States invade Cuba or the Soviet Union?"
The author's response?
"Not at present. I don’t think it’s necessary. I would advocate that which the Soviet Union fears above all else: economic boycott.
"I would advocate a blockade of Cuba and an economic boycott of Soviet Russia. And you would see both of those regimes collapse without the loss of a single American life."
Rand understood that Communist countries are not free markets. You don’t apply the principle of individual rights to countries disrespecting individual rights.
It’s beyond naïve and gullible to think that the legal and economic status of people in countries like China are anything like ours in America.
If you want to trade with the people of these countries for mutual benefit, then you’ve got to get rid of their governments.
Or, as Ayn Rand suggested, undermine those governments enough that they’d collapse and perhaps the people will then become willing and able to embrace freedom, including free market capitalism.
With its citizenry as property of the state, nations like China have no regard for individual rights.
Obviously that structure does not comprise freedom.
The government of a truly free country merely upholds contracts and private property rights. The government doesn’t decide who gets to have what property; the government doesn’t get to decide how much is or isn’t a reasonable profit.
Once again, our nation's 47th commander in chief is merely the messenger.
Pointing out the obvious: China isn’t fair to the U.S. China is a totalitarian Communist government. Totalitarian governments are not, and never have been, fair.
Increasingly, we let China’s government-run system:
- Produce our pharmaceuticals.
- Our computer parts.
- All things we require for living.
Additionally, we're letting the red giant:
Remember, the Chinese government can cut us off at any time. Even starve us.
At some point, they’ll be able to overtake our military (that is, unless Trump’s policies prevail); that means they'll threaten to cut off our internet and devices if we don’t comply.
It’s only a matter of time.
Punishing China isn’t thwarting free trade.
It’s treating a Communist country in exactly the manner it deserves to be treated.
It’s a matter of stern, strong foreign policy.
And yet again, President Trump is right.
Why?
Because he lives in the reality of global realpolitik, seeing it for what it is, unlike so many supposed leaders.
Michael J. Hurd, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Psychology. He's the author of "Grow Up America" and "Bad Therapy, Good Therapy," (see: www.DrHurd.com). Dr. Hurd has been quoted in and/or appeared on over 30 radio shows/podcasts (including Rush Limbaugh and Larry Elder), and on Newsmax TV. He also authors two self-help columns weekly. Dr. Hurd resides in Charleston, South Carolina. Read More Dr. Hurd's Reports — More Here.
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