Protectionism Is For Chumps

Just a few minutes ago, former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan said on Kudlow & Company that he favors protectionist tariffs on imported goods to help end the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs.

This is where my libertarian side thumbs its nose at my conservative side.

Free trade and globalization create a better economy domestically and abroad for our trading partners. Protectionism is so ridiculous because instead of hurting our trading partners and helping us, it does the opposite. Sometimes, it hurts everybody, as in extreme cases like the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that helped cause world trade to decline by 66% by 1934, according to the State Department.

Wikipedia says that "[A] revenue-generating tariff can be beneficial to an individual domestic economy, if other countries do not retaliate with tariffs of their own." Well the problem is that in efforts to protect their own industries, or just out of spite, foreign nations often do retaliate and fuel cyclical devastation that would plunge the WORLD economy into recession.

Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes and Digital Rules blogger, argues that "Paleo Pat's" doctrine of "economic patriotism" would be "disastrous for the U.S. and the world."

I agree ...