Free Trade Is Not America's Problem

In a recent article in Human Events.com (h/t Glenda McGee) Pat Buchanan gives an incisive analysis of the faltering neo-conservative, "Rockefeller Republican" movement within the Republican Party. He lyrically depicts professional Republicans' attitudes toward the Tea Party movement as those of plantation owners toward their field hands.  I appreciate Buchanan's Populist writing, but Populism is part of the problem, not the solution. 

In particular, Buchanan does not offer a coherent model of trade.  He couples his attack on the neo-conservatives with an attack on free trade, or at least what seems to be an attack on free trade. He does not articulate a rational position. If his position is protectionist, he is suicidal. If he is in favor of a laissez faire, zero tariff trade policy as preferable to the various treaties he mentions I'm all for it. Also, I wouldn't mind eliminating NAFTA which just creates a different kind of trade barrier. WTO (the later name for GATT) is another story. It has pushed the world toward lower tariffs all around. This ought to stimulate the world's economic health. Americans should be able to generate new jobs through entrepreneurship and imagination. That they haven't isn't the fault of reducing trade barriers; it is the fault of a fascist economy that inhibits creativity and entrepreneurship. If Buchanan is in favor of dismantling the blockages: the income tax, the Fed, government regulation and the like then I am with him. But I don't agree that trade is the source of our problems.  Creating trade barriers is just another way to subsidize sclerotic industries and unproductive work.