Economists and Free Trade

The trouble with the economy is too often the economists who advise, oversee and, in some cases, even manipulate it.

This is the crowd that advised on and overly embraced sub-prime mortgages, derivatives and credit default swaps. The crowd that advised on deregulating the financial industry. And the crowd that, after over stimulating the economy for the past eight years to the tune of $5 trillion of deficit spending, is now calling for, you guessed it, even more financial stimulus!

According to the Congressional Budget Office, last year's deficit or financial stimulus was $1.035 trillion. And as the economists try to decide on the amount of stimulus sufficient to jolt our clearly broken economy, we have already spent $691 [12/5/08] billion on additional financial stimulus just since October 1st -- and it is not working.

To really prime the pump of the economy, it should be "billions for immediate infrastructure -- and not much more for financial stimulus."

The need now is to create jobs and to stop increasing the interest costs on the federal debt, costs that already exceeds $500 billion a year -- $500 billion which we should be spending on universal health care and not on economic steroids. More of the wrong kind of stimulus will only serve to stimulate more production in China, at the expense of more jobs being lost here at home.

Of course, the economists for the global financial institutions and the big multinational corporations know this, but because their loyalties are more to their institutions and less to our nation, they continue their calls for ever more "free trade" and for continuing U.S. trade and current account deficits.

The irony is that economists learn in their very first class in school that it was a trade war which brought us our initial freedom as a country, and that semi-protectionism later helped build the United States. England started a "trade war" with the Colonies by adopting the Navigation Act of 1651 that required all trade be carried in British vessels. Manufacturing was forbidden in the Colonies, even the printing of the Bible, and then the Townsend Acts drafted by Adam Smith placed heavy import duties on a wide range of items. All of this precipitated the Boston Tea Party that started the Revolution.

While we obtained our freedom in 1776, it wasn't until 1787 that we empowered Congress, in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, to regulate commerce, both domestic and foreign. President George Washington's first message to the first Congress in 1789 warned that, "A free people should promote manufactories to render them independent of essential, particularly military, supplies." Thereafter, the United States was financed and built for 100 years with semi-protectionism, and we didn't even pass the income tax until 1913. At the advent of the Transcontinental Railroad, it was suggested that the needed steel be obtained from England - but President Abraham Lincoln strongly objected and required the steel to be produced in the United States. And Edmund Morris, in his remarkable book "Theodore Rex" about President Teddy Roosevelt, has TR exclaiming at the time the United States won the trade war with England, "Thank God I am not a free trader."

Under the new phenomenon called "globalization", the so-called "comparative advantage" which underpinned the early centuries is no longer God-given or determined by the weather, as was the case, two centuries ago, with David Ricardo's English woolens and Portuguese wine. Now commercial success is largely created, or not, by government policies, and the United States government refuses to compete for such success, even though, as The Economist magazine reported recently, "Business these days is all about competing with everyone from everywhere for everything."

Right after World War II, Japan started its trade war by competing in international trade for market share rather than profit. Japan closed its domestic market and sold its exports at cost, making up the profit in its closed market. It subsidized production and targeted certain items in trade - first textiles, then electronics, machine tools, robots and, finally, automobiles. As a consequence, Toyota is today #1 as General Motors, Chrysler and Ford struggle just to survive.

China's post-WWII trade war began when it closed its domestic market to articles domestically produced, but opened it to foreign production in exchange for research and technology. General Motors, Intel and Microsoft, among others, have established major research facilities in China, and the U.S. is now running a $1 billion per month trade deficit with China in just advanced technology products. China has accumulated foreign reserves in excess of $1.3 trillion, and it is now far and away the world's superpower in trade.

These behaviors by Japan, China, India and others are manifest in almost all of America's imports, but they are most manifest in automobiles, where the focus and the consequences are crystal clear.

The United States Congress looks at the BMW plant in South Carolina, my home State, and the Nissan plant in Mississippi as examples of relative success and wonders what's the matter with Detroit?

• Yet BMW received a tax deferral benefit of $100 million to locate in South Carolina and Nissan received over $300 million to locate in Mississippi. And all Detroit got - Ford, GM and Chrysler alike - was tax incentives to leave the United States and offshore its jobs and production.

• The supervisory personnel from Germany and Japan who run BMW's and Nissan's plants have health care and retirement benefits paid for by Germany and Japan. Detroit has to pay for the health care and retirement benefits of its supervisory personnel.

• BMW and Nissan have deductible health care for its employees. Detroit has to pay full health costs on its employees.

• BMW and Nissan hire forty-five year olds and under in order to minimize health costs. Detroit has a lot of senior people and legacy costs.

• The major parts that BMW and Nissan use to assemble cars in the United States are produced 16% cheaper in Germany and 5% cheaper in Japan because BMW's and Nissan's VAT taxes are rebated when parts are shipped for assembly in the United States. Detroit pays all local, state and federal taxes on its parts.

• Nissan, with a largely closed domestic market, does not have to make a profit, and thus located in the United States for market share. Detroit needs to make profits.

• BMW and Nissan high-ball the costs of their imported parts so as to minimize profits and taxes to the United States. Detroit has to pay taxes on its profits.

And now, no surprise, the U.S. has a net deficit of $10 billion a month in foreign car imports, or more than $1 trillion in the last eight years, all because of highly and in some cases illegally subsidized competition with Detroit.

And yet some influential economists still call this "free trade".

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid charged Ford, General Motors and Chrysler "to get their act together [and] to come up with something." But Detroit can't do it alone. The new President and Congress must come up with something at the same time for Detroit to recover long-range. Using his authority to protect our national security, President John F. Kennedy instituted his seven-point policy of protection for textiles in 1961. Under Section 201 of the Trade Act, President Ronald Reagan threatened quotas on automobile imports in order to get Voluntary Restraint Agreements from Japan. So clearly the authority is there for President-elect Obama and Congress to impose quotas on imported cars so that Detroit can recover long-term long-range.

Of course, it is not just jobs and production we are offshoring, but also research and development, high-end services and critical military materials.

Thus, Congress must also vigorously (re)assume its responsibility under Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution for regulating trade in general. It must protect our important production and standard of living. And it must make it profitable to invest and produce in the United States.

A value added tax is in order, and long overdue in fact. Every industrialized country except the United States has a value added tax, which is levied on all imports and rebated to manufacturers whenever they export. Today, however, imports into the United States come without any taxes being imposed on them, and U.S. manufacturers not only must pay all corporate taxes but the VAT on their exports.

A U.S. VAT would immediately remove a tremendous disadvantage to production in the United States and begin to deter outsourcing, and the revenues from it would help eliminate both our massive fiscal and trade deficits. Since it would take a year for business and the Internal Revenue Service to gear up for a VAT, in the meantime, we should institute a 10% surcharge on imports as President Nixon did so successfully in 1971.

We must also activate the Commerce Secretary's list of materials critical to our national security. By placing tariffs or quotas on items necessary to our national security and producing them in-country, we will not only be better prepared to defend ourselves but we can put American workers back to work. In 1991, Admiral William Crowe, who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned against the outsourcing of military supplies. In Desert Storm we had to await Japanese flat-panel displays before invading Kuwait. We had to await Swiss crystals before invading Iraq. Now we can't produce planes unless we get certain parts from India, and helicopters unless we get parts from Turkey. This nonsense has got to stop.

Of course for years economists have told us not to worry about the loss of manufacturing jobs, because the United States would simply and easily become a high-end service economy. But as Robyn Meredith writes in her wonderful book "The Elephant and the Dragon": "As China has famously become the factory to the world, India is becoming the world's back office...As many as 300,000 American jobs each year will move overseas [to India] for the next thirty years - nine million jobs in all."

So then the economists told us to "educate." But if they are referring to skills, South Carolina instituted a skilled training program forty-seven years ago, and BMW in Spartanburg, S.C. is now producing a better quality car than BMW produces in Munich, Germany. And South Carolina's technical training program is now being mimicked by Intel in Ireland. But no State and not the United States can educate their way out of unfair competition.

Then there was NAFTA. I voted for NAFTA with Canada because Canada has a free market. A country must have a free market to have free trade. Mexico doesn't have a free market. I counseled the trade policy of the European Union. The EU requires that, before being admitted to the European Union, a country must have developed the entities of a free market like property rights, labor rights, a minimum wage, anti-trust provisions, an independent judiciary, etc. Countries of the European Union taxed themselves $5 billion for five years to develop a free market in Greece and Portugal before admitting them to the EU. Mexico still doesn't have labor rights. U.S. corporations are known to sign up for a union before locating in Mexico, but only pro forma - no business agent at the Mexican facility, and the Mexican workers never hear of having a union. Under Mexican law, if one tries to organize a plant that already has a union, you're fired. On a visit to Tijuana I met with twelve workers who were fired because they tried to organize a union not knowing the plant had one. NAFTA superimposed U.S. subsidized corn on two million little Mexican corn farmers putting them out of business. The Mexican farmers headed for the border for work. NAFTA not only exacerbated immigration, but the United States lost jobs and Mexico's workers are paid less today than before NAFTA. We still ought to try the European Union approach in Mexico. With the money we spend on fences, Border Patrol, immigration, prosecutors, courts, jails, deportation, etc. a mini-Marshall Plan for Mexico could clean up the corruption and drug problem and develop a free market in Mexico. This will help solve our immigration problem.

As a last stand, the economists raise the specter of Smoot-Hawley. The late Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania "belled that buzzard", passing a protectionist trade bill in the United States Senate twenty years ago. Smoot-Hawley restricting imports did not cause the depression. It was enacted eight months after the crash. At the time, 1930, international trade amounted to only 1.3% of our economy. Cordell Hull had us back with a plus balance of trade in 1933 with his famous reciprocal free trade policy. The economists' free trade policy (without reciprocity) has caused a hemorrhaging of American jobs, production, research, technology, investment and development to China and India.

Henry Ford not only developed mass production of automobiles, but he also greatly contributed to the development of the middle class in America, which is the strength of our democracy. Ford doubled the minimum wage and provided health care and retirement benefits for labor. He strengthened communities with the Ford Foundation, and business was diligent to keep America's economy strong. And we in Congress got in the habit of following business's lead on the economy, adopting Corporate America's suggestions for production, marketing and competition.

But in globalization, Corporate America's leadership for trade and a strong economy has been "outsourced." The industrial icon, Jack Welch, once announced at GE's annual that GE suppliers had to move to Mexico to produce a less-costly product or no longer be considered a GE supplier.

Well, I worked with Corporate America to protect America's investment and production.
When I was in the Senate, I worked with Corporate America to keep our textile industry strong by passing a protectionist trade bill in 1968. President Lyndon Johnson, however, had Wilbur Mills, the powerful Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, block the measure. Again with the assistance of Corporate America, I helped pass four protectionist trade bills through both Houses of Congress only to see each of them vetoed - one by President Jimmy Carter, two by President Ronald Reagan, and one by President George H. W. Bush.

Presidents back then were anxious that capitalism defeat communism in the Cold War and weren't worried about our economy. Denied protection by Democratic and Republican administrations, Corporate America began outsourcing and offshoring. Now Corporate America opposes our government competing in globalization with chants of "free trade," "protectionism," "don't start a trade war." Now, our nation's business leaders and their economists, use every trick in the book to mislead on "protectionism." They form organizations like The Trilateral Commission and The Business Roundtable, they promote books like "The World is Flat" to warn against protectionism, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is more interested in commerce on Main Street, Shanghai than on Main Street, Spartanburg. The truth is globalization has become nothing more than a trade war, with the U.S. AWOL. And all the while, some major economists oppose any measure to protect our domestic production and economy, and they have become a "fifth column" in trade war.

As Sir James Goldsmith testified before the Committee of Commerce in the United States Senate in 1994: "It must surely be a mistake to adopt an economic policy which makes you rich if you eliminate your national workforce and transfer your d, and which bankrupts you if you continue to employ your own people."

But sadly, that's our policy today. Only the President and Congress can change it!

As President Lincoln said: "As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves [from free trade economists] and then we shall save our country."

Senator Hollings of South Carolina served 38 years in the United States Senate, and for many years was Chairman of the Commerce, Space, Science & Transportation Committee. He is the author of the newly published book "Making Government Work" (University of South Carolina Press, 2008. His Website is called Citizens for a Competitive America.

Comments

[gschott]

Hooray for Hollings! We need more true patriots like him who will fight for manufacturing jobs for our country. He worked hard to bring them to his SC in the 50s and 60s, and then saw them leave starting in the late 70s, and Democrats like Carter and Clinton were as bad as Reagan Republicans. In this article, Fighting Fritz states the facts and defends American workers in Detroit and elsewhere who compete against subsidized foreign industry. I am a Fritz Hollings Democrat!
Grant Schott
Fossil, Oregon

[DavidBH]

Let's not wait for our elected officials to fix our arcane trade laws. Our government can do precious little to help the economy but they sure can screw it up. Only our citizenry can fix our economy.

I am convinced that American consumers can stop this recession dead in its tracks. While there are many great products made abroad. We also import a lot of crap for lack of a better description. In the process we have closed our factories for many consumer products categories and moved very close to becoming a purely serviced based economy. A country that manufactures nothing is doomed to permanent decline. Do you want to be left with a country where are kids are doomed to careers flipping burgers in fast food restaurants?

We stupidly ran off to Walmart the last 30 years and destroyed our manufacturing sector. We can fairly quickly undo the error of our ways by making a concerted effort to buy American. Pretty soon it won't be a sacrifice to make that choice. Sure, we never will be the low cost supplier. We pay our factory workers an order of magnitude more than does China (and we certainly don’t want to fall to their standard of living). But, we can become the supplier of the highest quality and “best value for the quality” products in the world.

My blog, http://www.AmericanBoom.com/blog is devoted to the rebuilding of our manufacturing sector.

[Viper]

Ok free traders, pls list some factual statistical evidence in our economy that " free" trade ( which no one else practices) has improved things and made the world any safer over the last 30 years..


Our trade surpluses are up? Job creation is up? Real wages are up? Our deficits our down. Our military spending is down? The dollar has increased in value? Poverty is down? The middleclass is growing? College graduates are in demand? Americans networth has increased? Our infrastructure is better? People are more secure? Distribution of wealth is better? 2 family members having to work when it use to be one...???? Our educational standing is better?

Ever trend line is downward from 1980! Thats called a failure.

Regards

[BARRISTER]

"Free Trade" is the most expensive fraud ever perpetrated on the American People. Before a Nation can be Free it must be firm - its home economics must be rock hard. That can only be achieved by protecting the manufacturing base and growing it at home. Feed yourself then look outwards.

YES, I am for protectionism - America First! America Free!

[peterg76]

The basis of the scam is the fact that the "free" "trade" agreements have nothing to do with the economic concept of free trade. They are investment agreements about giving rights to investors and taking away rights of workers, they have no idelogical consistency at all, and they do immeasurable harm by exacerbating imbalances.

[RoloTomassi]

"...they have no idelogical consistency at all..."

On this point I would strongly disagree; their ideology is that of Free market Fundamentalism, and their consistent push for the domination of their ideological beliefs through the IMF & World Bank in the name of "globalization" is responsible for the "immeasurable harm by exacerbating imbalances" that you wrote about above.

[FogBelter]

Senator Hollings, the MBA class in America has spent the last 30 years in an endless cycle of self congratulation over the dismantling of the foundation of the US and World Economy ... the American Consumer. Of course, the astute MBA class had a little problem recognizing the US Consumer and waged a self defeating war against them. You see, they couldn't come to terms with the fact that the one employee whose wage they were happy to suppress or were happy to layoff was in actuality the Consumer of 30 other companies. So as they downsized and kept the employees scared, they engaged in Corporate Fratricide by removing consumers from the market place.

But wait! One could layoff workers, outsource jobs and depress wages as long as the consumer had access to easy credit. So open the flood gates!!!! Credit cards for everyone! Home equity loans for everyone ... spend, spend, spend ... "Happy day are here again!" Or at least they were here.

We are back to square one. no credit, no consumers, no jobs, no profits ... bleak. The only way to restore the vigor of our consumer base is by bringing jobs home, employing Americans at living wages, and protecting our Markets with Tariffs. It really doesn't matter what the Free Marketeers want ... they cooked their Golden Goose. We need to fix this problem with jobs that pay, so we can resurrect the American Consumer and get the country back on track.

[aofh]

I propose that all economies are, first and foremost, local; that they are about getting a living. Talk about globalization, free trade, fair trade are abstractions divorced from the primary stuff of survival which is what an economy is really about whether we live in Los Angles, Inchon, or on the Sahara desert. To think about globalization as we do--with its implicit understanding of competition--is a luxury most of us will never be able to afford. The truth is, I have no problem with the Mexican, Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese doing whatever he has to get a living even when he is living in an ecomonic environment similar to the one I live in. (To my knowledge, no nation has ever become "first world" without resorting to protectionist policies including the United States. And necessarily so.) I do have a problem with those having the luxury to think about globalization putting me in competition with Mexicans, Indians, Chinese, and Vietnamese as a means of growing their quarterly profits. I resent the social Darwinism their thinking and actions have imposed. I resent that my means of getting a living is jeopardized by some rich guy's desire to be the top money maker in his industry.

Also, don't forget that GM and Ford had global reach long before Toyota and BMW. Both of the former have employeed thousands in foreign countries for decades. One of the lessons we should draw from this is that company-sponsored socialism doesn't work.

[PhilipTaylor]

Our source for building wealth has been shipped abroad and now the attempt be Republicans who paid foreign car companies to locate in their state it to kill off what little is left of our car companies is self-interest at its worst.

People without jobs and a country without exports to build wealth or at least supply its own people is a country in decline.

The "House of Cards" built by the BANKSTERS using Fake Products has backfired and at 40% of the wealth of our markets built around them we find ourselves in a Crisis.

We must use our creative powers, our genius, and our hands to build new industry that can export products all over the World and can supply Americans with some of their needs.

Made in China is OK for many products but in many areas Made in America can be far better and safer.
We must trade with the countries of the world but we must again become a supplier as well as a consumer.

[FessorFrink]

I thought the post by Senator Hollings was well thought out and constructed showing the history of America with periods a free and protectionst trade policies. If economists truly believe in free trade and know that China, India, Japan, and other countries are not competing fairly, than I think we have the right to even out an unfair system. The VAT does sound like a good idea especially if it is practiced throughout most of the world, like Universal Healthcare, and other ways to help out our industrial companies.

[darthdarcy]

Great post Senator; your last one was equally important.­.

[Pdubya]

Last time I checked, we haven't had any markings of true free trade since 1971. I wish, Senator, that more of our representatives would look to our Constitution. It really isn't just a 'goddamn piece of paper". End the Federal Reserve, cut Federal Spending, hell....el­iminate the income tax (it only represents a portion of our tax revenue). And I'm sorry you voted for NAFTA: I don't want to be "harmonized". The way to increase the standard of living around the world is to first do it here - and I'm not talking about the false reality we've been living in and now realizing. Credit comes from savings, which comes from production and export. Credit does not come from more credit (read: bailouts and loans).

We are (oh ...."they" are) debasing our currency. What do you think will become of our sovereignty and liberty when our Federal Reserve Note is worth a penny? Will the new world currency, run by a larger international banking cartel do us more good in the long run? Or maybe we could apply the genius of our Founding Fathers to today's enterprise. It can be done.

[EngineerBill]

"The EU requires that, before being admitted to the European Union, a country must have developed the entities of a free market like property rights, labor rights, a minimum wage, anti-trust provisions, an independent judiciary, etc."

This what needs to happen to China. We need to pressure China to have the above requirements or there is no level playing field.
What an excellent post. Hope somebody important in the Obama administration reads this.

[Viper]

Its a communist country... The government owns 50% of all businesses and 100% of many businesses­... Thats never a basis for free trade... heck they dont even have freedom of speech.

When you have countries of very different stds and stds of living, you can not have free trade between them. $1.50 per day in wages beats 120 per day all day long...


Regards

[Articulator]

Then maybe we can use tariffs against them to force them to let their currency float on the open market. In order to do that we have to have people in power that dont worship at the alter of the unfettered free market. That's why big business cant be allowed to run the US govt. Big business execs love sending jobs overseas because their bonuses get even bigger than the 10's to 100's of millions of dollars per year. I'm not saying the free market is bad, I'm just saying we should work it to our (the middle class) favor instead of worshiping it.

[Articulator]

Globalization is a way to get around the labor movement that occurred after the industrial revolution. Before the labor movement workers dealt with extremely difficult conditions for little pay and no benefits. It was after the labor movement that the US became a superpower proving that you dont need a very small number of people to control almost all the wealth while the rest of the population is very poor. Without any forces to do otherwise, the unbounded free market will push all the wealth to a small number of people just like it results in toxic waste being poured down the drain, melamine being used in food supplies, and dubious financial market gimmicks being created that come back to haunt later. There is no need to pay workers a livable wage if it puts you at a detriment. There has to be some force that ensures that abuses of labor dont occur just like there need to be forces that keep toxic waste from being poured down the drain. If you are going to have free trade between countries, then there has to be a set of guidelines that all must follow (labor rules, etc.) to make the free market forces work in a constructive manner. If there is no way to create enforceable international guidelines then it may be that globalization does not work.

[OneTop]

I hear the United Fruit Company calling in the background.

[jsarets]

Continued from comment below...

The right places to build trade walls are across the international flow of capital and labor. The basic rules are simple: 1) American capital may only be invested in American individuals and businesses, 2) Businesses employing labor in the United States (American businesses) may only employ labor in the United States, and 3) American businesses may neither own foreign businesses nor be owned by any.

None of these rules necessarily has to be absolute. I recommend a tax on foreign investment or employment as a disincentive rather than outright prohibition. American businesses also wouldn't be prohibited from entering contracts with foreign employers. But the general idea is to regulate the outflow of American wealth and production without shutting down the global trade of goods and services.

[jsarets]

The trouble with protectionist trade wars is that they lead to real wars. Free trade stops wars. Free commercial markets quell civil unrest. Both drive entrepreneurship and innovation -- and they help bring peoples, cultures, and ideas together while celebrating diversity.

Protectionism is a self-defeating ideology: if we put the squeeze on imports, foreign markets will rein in our exports, and we all boldly race toward isolationism. We have some difficult challenges ahead. We can't develop an ecologically sustainable economy without global economic cooperation and integration. If there ever was a good time to start building walls, it surely isn't now.

You say we can't have free trade without free markets, and I agree to the extent that you're talking about commercial and not financial or labor markets. But in response to other nations sullying free trade with more-or-less closed markets, you suggest that we begin to close our own commercial markets!!

We need trade policy harmonization to ensure a level playing field. But why harmonize down to match the most tightly controlled foreign markets when we should be trying to harmonize up to match our relatively free markets?

I want access to the products of the world, and I want the fruits of my labor to be accessible to the world. The exchange of goods and services across geopolitical borders is not the right place to build a wall.

[Pdubya]

we can have free trade with fair markets though. big difference. and NAFTA aint it.

[RoloTomassi]

"Free commercial markets quell civil unrest."

If such a statement is taken in the context of free market fndamentalism, a close look reveals this comment to be apologist nonsense; the war in Iraq was first and foremost an economic war, and protectionism and trade wars had absolutely nothing to do with it; seeking unfettered access for free market corporatism had everything to do with it.

While limited global trade is likely unavoidable in the modern day, the morally bankrupt policies of the IMF & World Bank that insist emerging economies cut social services, privatize all industries and "structurally adjust" their economies to the extreme advantage of corporations and the distinct disadvantage of all but the most wealthy--these policies are a plague upon the poor and the working class peoples all over the world.

And the US is the primary culprit of this criminal economic approach.

[Viper]

Theory is nice. Lets look at reality.


If Japan had practiced free trade they would have no auto industry. And today Koreans would be driving cars from Japan if they practiced free trade.

The philosophy you expouse has been a failure for this country. Since 1980 we have gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation in the world, from trade surpluses to massive ever growing trade deficits and ever gorwing budget deficits. NOT sustainable. Your theory is our economic collapse.

You bought cheap goods by running up debts and foreign currencies being pegged to a declinning dollar. When they unpeg as they will and your credit is cut, the price will tripple and you will not be able to afford those products from around the world.

Your side had 35 years to show positive results for America... it has not. No net private sector jobs created in the past 8 years. Real wages declined. The jobs replacing those lost, pay 30 percent less.

The std of living was held up for part of that time by going from one worker in a family to two... That boost is now gone... and of course its a model that if a fmaily lost one worker, they went under. Its a model thats built on 2 workers being employed in a country that cant employ one.

Time to get out of the lab and look at the results! Protectionism causes war? War predates free/global trade.

Regards


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Regards