Free trade zone

“ Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. To this extent I am a protectionist. If our government pursues this line of policy steadily, we shall, year by year, approach more nearly to the basis of free trade, because we shall be more nearly able to compete with other nations on equal terms. I am for a protection which leads to ultimate free trade. ”

“ For example, it is a great advantage to them that their mutual commerce should be free, without the impediment of frontier duties and custom-houses. But this internal freedom can not exist if each state has the power of fixing the duties on interchange of commodities between itself and foreign countries, since every foreign product let in by one state would be let into all the rest; and hence all custom duties and trade regulations in the United States are made or repealed by the federal government exclusively. ”

“ The total population does not exceed 100,000 people. According to the official reports, there exist within the limits of the free zone no industries worth mentioning, which is explained by the fact that all industrial products manufactured in the zone when sent into the interior of the country are required to pay the regular duties charged on imports into the country; and, on account of the protective tariff of the United States, it is impracticable to export such products to that country. ”

“ The question of the day is that of the protection of our farmers from the unfair competition of foreign produce, and the protection of our manufacturers. I am in favour of reciprocal free trade if it can be obtained; but, so long as the policy of the United States closes the markets to our products, we should have a policy of our own as well, and consult only our own interests. ”

“ The reason of this tendency of free trade to advance industry, as I pointed out, in an address before the International Free Trade Congress in London last summer, is "that every agency for reducing and obstructing importations must at the same time, a little less directly but precisely as powerfully, obstruct and reduce exportations."
It is altogether fallacious to treat the interest of the manual laborer as if it were something apart from that of the people as a whole—as if it were not practically identical with that of the consumer generally. ”

“ I believe that, if only we could shake off the fetters of a narrow and pedantic theory, and freely reshape our own system of import duties on principles of obvious common sense, we should be able at one and the same time to promote trade within the Empire, to strengthen our hands in commercial negotiations with foreign countries, and to render tardy justice to our home industries.
The Free Trader goes on the principle of placing duties on a very few articles only, articles, generally, of universal consumption, and of making those duties very high ones. ”

“ The second alternative is that we should insist that we will not be bound by any purely technical definition of Free Trade, that, while we seek as one chief object free interchange of trade and commerce between ourselves and all the nations of the world, we will, nevertheless, recover our freedom, resume that power of negotiation and, if necessary, retaliation whenever our own interests or our relation between our Colonies and ourselves are threatened by other people. ”

“ The larger the area brought under one political control, the less the handicap of internal friction and the greater its economic independence. Vast territory has enabled the United States to maintain with advantage a protective tariff, chiefly because the free trade within its own borders was extensive. ”

“ It never has existed, it never will exist. Trade implies at least two parties. To be free, it should be fair, equal, and reciprocal. But if we throw our ports wide open to the admission of foreign productions, free of all duty, what ports of any other foreign nation shall we find open to the free admission of our surplus produce? We may break down all barriers to free trade on our part, but the work will not be complete until foreign powers shall have removed theirs. There would be freedom on one side, and restrictions, prohibitions, and exclusions on the other. ”

“ These steps toward healthy economic growth and a more secure society represent the essential underpinning for America to compete in the world economy.
However, U.S. companies must have fair access to international markets. We have placed a high priority on reducing trade barriers abroad, and we are making progress. The North American Free Trade Agreement creates a vibrant, integrated market on our own continent and opens up great possibilities for an even larger free trade area in the future. ”

“ If they adopt free trade, they will alienate the Border Slave States, and even Louisiana; if a system of customs, they have cut themselves off from the chief consumers of foreign goods. One of the calculations of the Southern conspirators is to render the Free States tributary to their new republic by adopting free trade and smuggling their imported goods across the border. But this is all moonshine; for, even if smuggling could not be prevented as easily as it now is from the British Provinces, how long would it be before the North would adapt its tariff to the new order of things? ”

“ In a subsequent chapter I shall have to touch on the question of the influence of Free Trade on foreign policy. Those who look only to a larger market for their manufactures are very apt to fall into traps, such as that of the Channel Tunnel — the trap of drawing a nation which nature has placed in an insular situation out of that advantageous position, and placing that nation on a level with the nations which had not that advantage, only to put money into the pockets of certain speculators who use the words "free trade" to serve their passion for speculation. ”

“ In such circumstances, His Majesty’s Government are unable to see that there exists the complete freedom of trade or absence of monopoly in trade which is required by the Berlin Act. On the contrary, no one other than the agents of the State or of the concession-holder has the opportunity to enter into trade relations with the natives ”

“ In my own judgment, the so-called protective principle or policy of interference with commerce by imposing fines on foreign imports has retarded the progress of the specially protected arts, and has in some measure obstructed the diversity of manufactures; but the opposite policy of absolutely free trade in our domestic traffic over a greater area and among a much larger number of people than have elsewhere secured their own liberty has been so much more potent in its progressive influence as to have lessened the evils of the restrictions on foreign trade. ”

“ Do these gentlemen intend to maintain that there is any thing of free trade in the system, which ties our own colonists hand and foot, prevents them from making use of the capabilities of their soil, dissipates their capital, and then quietly abolishes all distinctive duty between their produce and that of countries which have not chosen to adopt the same system? Is the fleet upon the coast of Africa a symbol of free-trade principles, or the opposite? ”

“ The case in which it may sometimes be a matter of deliberation, how far, or in what manner, it is proper to restore the free importation of foreign goods, after it has been for some time interrupted, is when particular manufactures, by means of high duties or prohibitions upon all foreign goods which can come into competition with them, have been so far extended as to employ a great multitude of hands. Humanity may in this case require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve and circumspection. ”

“ And neither we nor the members of the European Common Market are so affluent that we can long afford to shelter high cost farms or factories from the winds of foreign competition, or to restrict the channels of trade with other nations of the free world. If the Common Market should move toward protectionism and restrictionism, it would undermine its own basic principles. This Government means to use the authority conferred on it last year by the Congress to encourage trade expansion on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world. ”

“ Earlier this year, I signed the Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement, which will help ensure that free trade is fair trade and level the playing field for American products exported to Central America. To continue to open new markets for America's farmers and ranchers, we must also work for a free and fair global trading system. ”

“ These men argued, naturally enough, that as manufacturing trades were protected against foreigners, their business also should be protected against competition in the only form in which it could arise. Doubtless this resistance will eventually be overcome, but not without leaving a sense of injustice.
While each class seeks to have the benefit of Protection for its own manufactures, it also seeks to obtain the benefits of Free Trade for the raw material and smaller accessories used in their production. ”

“ Has it not even been acknowledged by the fathers of the free-trade church, in their late address promulgated from Philadelphia to the people of the United States? If we never had a system of foreign imports, and were now called upon for the first time to originate one, should we not discriminate between the objects of our own industry and those produced by foreigners? ”

“ In countries in which the system of Protection is declining, but not yet wholly given up, such as the United States, a doctrine has come into notice which is a sort of compromise between free trade and restriction, namely, that protection for protection's sake is improper, but that there is nothing objectionable in having as much protection as may incidentally result from a tariff framed solely for revenue. ”

“ Has not Congress passed laws which prohibit the importation of foreign productions by the maintenance of excessive duties? Does not the Tribune maintain that it is advantageous to limit the supply of iron manufactures and cotton fabrics, by restraining any one from bringing them to market, but the manufacturers in New England and Pennsylvania? Do we not hear it complained every day: Our importations are too large; We are buying too much from abroad? ”

“ Protection, on the other hand, is that state of affairs in which the nations are hindered from this free exchange by tariffs imposed for that special purpose.
Well, we all know that Free Trade as thus defined does not exist. We are said to be living under Free Trade, but in a strict sense that is not so. We are living under a system in which our imports alone are free; our exports to some of the principal markets not being free. It is only as regards our imports that we enjoy perfect freedom ”

“ Such drawbacks cannot force into this trade a greater share of the capital of the country than what would have gone to it of its own accord, had there been no duties upon importation; they only prevent its being excluded altogether by those duties. The carrying trade, though it deserves no preference, ought not to be precluded, but to be left free, like all other trades. It is a necessary resource to those capitals which cannot find employment, either in the agriculture or in the manufactures of the country, either in its home trade, or in its foreign trade of consumption. ”

“ The Commission also included a section on East-West trade, recommending that the United States not object to more trade in peaceful goods between Western Europe and the European bloc.
These two subjects, trade liberalization and East-West trade, are connected with each other. When businessmen in free-world countries are hindered—either by trade barriers or other artificial causes—from [Pg 49] selling products in other free-world countries, they are more prone to seek markets in the Soviet bloc. ”

“ During all these years, England alone among the nations has maintained a system of free ports, the only changes in her fiscal policy being in the direction of greater freedom, while other nations, such as the United States, France, and Germany, have raised round themselves the barriers of prohibitory tariffs. With one exception, every conceivable economical condition that could constitute a test of the principles and practice of Free Trade has occurred, the one condition untried being universal Free Trade. ”

“ The United States also is seeking high levels of IPR protection and enforcement in the FTAs that are currently under negotiation with Panama, Thailand, the Southern Africa Customs Union, Ecuador, the United Arab Emirates, and in the ongoing negotiation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas. ”

“ In the second place democratic leaders and advocates in every locality are eager to protest that they do not now desire free trade, do not dream of admitting duty free the productions of competing foreign workmen, and that they aim only at a reduction of the tariff. ”

“ We all recognize that a protection tariff forces us to pay for many articles slightly more than they would probably cost us under a system of free trade. We know too that at first our manufactured products, whether of metal, cotton or coal, cost us in general more to make at home than they would have cost us if imported freely from abroad. ”

“ It has enjoyed great, though by no means unbroken, prosperity under Free Trade. Side by side with that system of ours other countries have prospered even more under quite different systems. These facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical spirit, which is the spirit of the Tariff Reformer. He does not believe in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the imposition of duties upon imports. Such duties cannot, he thinks, be judged by one single test, namely, whether they do or do not favour the home producer, and be condemned out of hand if they do favour him. ”