{"id":32397,"date":"2018-03-15T10:34:22","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T15:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32397"},"modified":"2018-03-15T10:35:00","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T15:35:00","slug":"the-illusion-of-free-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32397","title":{"rendered":"The Illusion of Free Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"post_title\">\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/the-illusion-of-free-trade-2_2464265.html\">The Illusion of Free Trade<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sub_title\"><strong>The current trading system was never free; Trump\u2019s tariffs merely change who gets what<\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"date\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"featured_image\">\n<div class=\"featured_img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/assets\/uploads\/2017\/12\/28\/GettyImages-103409027-700x420.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"featured_caption\">Container ships are docked in the Port of Oakland in this file photo. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"social\">Anything President Donald Trump does usually provokes a backlash from the status quo. In early March, the focus is on trade, as Trump walked the walk and slapped import tariffs on steel, aluminum, washing machines, and solar panels not just from China but also other countries.<\/div>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>The backlash from popular media and the affected countries\u2019 politicians blames Trump for ruining the beautiful \u201cfree trade\u201d system built up around the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).<\/p>\n<p>As with anything Trump says or does, it\u2019s important to step back and look at the bigger context he\u2019s acting within.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Not Free<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The first big-picture news flash is that neither the WTO nor the GATT was \u201cfree.\u201d Free trade is trade without government intervention.<\/p>\n<p>One country or industry may produce and export a lot of steel, but if it doesn\u2019t get any subsidies and doesn\u2019t have protective import tariffs, then it deserves to capture global market share because it\u2019s the most competitive. It uses the locally given resources of labor and capital in the most productive way.<\/p>\n<p>Another country may be the best in producing solar panels, making it the world leader in solar panels. The two countries can swap steel and solar panels and balance their trade, with each country doing what it does best.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Illusion of Free Trade The current trading system was never free; Trump\u2019s tariffs merely change who gets what Container ships are docked in the Port of Oakland in this file photo. (Justin Sullivan\/Getty Images) Anything President Donald Trump does usually provokes a backlash from the status quo. In early March, the focus is on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8117,337,379,16722,805,16349],"class_list":["post-32397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-epoch-times","tag-free-trade","tag-government","tag-government-intervention","tag-trade","tag-valentin-schmid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32398,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32397\/revisions\/32398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}