Free trade is good, says Rand Paul and I completely agree: Free trade among FREE PEOPLE is good. But if you’re trading with someone who lives in a country ruled by totalitarian fascists that label themselves Communists or “democrats,” you’re deluding yourself if you call it free trade. “Free trade” implies free individuals doing the trading. In America, at least under Trump and the better Republicans, you are free, relatively speaking. Not so for people living under the socialist regimes of Western Europe, Australia, Canada and Japan, or under the 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. Rand Paul is mistaken when he accepts uncritically the premise that what we have is free trade — not in a world with overwhelmingly unfree countries. Oppose Trump’s tariffs if you wish, but you don’t get to oppose them on the false assumption that free trade is yet in existence on planet Earth.
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