Free trade for free countries

Matthew Yglesias at Slow Boring reiterates the case for American free trade with likeminded countries. 

What we ought to be doing is trying to minimize the total amount of trade barriers, and thus the economic cost of pursuing competition with China, by reducing as many trade barriers as we can. We should stop complaining about cheap Canadian lumber. We should stop blocking imports of Latin American sugar. We should let Toyota sell cheap small trucks to Americans who want them. We should, frankly, probably start buying (or leasing2) warships from Japan and Korea, where they actually know how to build ships. America is toast in a conflict with China if we can’t count on cooperation with our friends, so we may as well optimize on maximum economic efficiency and the freest possible trade within the free world. This also applies to quasi-trade in professional services — we should make it easier for foreign doctors to practice here, and have the FDA and European drug regulators work together so approval by one agency will let you sell on either side of the Atlantic. There’s a lot we can do to work together internationally and increase prosperity.

It seems obviously crazy that the US wants countries to reduce trade links with China while setting tariffs on countries that it calls friends and allies that encourage them to trade with China instead. 

That was my column over in the Post on Monday. 

I think it's a bit crazy that New Zealand has been talking about tighter defence arrangements with the US without having a secure trade deal with the US already in hand. China is our largest trading partner. We have a free trade agreement with them. And while there have been occasional bits of weirdness facing goods entering, they don't stick giant tariffs on our exports. 

Easy to check this for yourself, even though MFAT in general seems to prefer not making a big deal about how protectionist America is (contrast MFAT's correct and explicit views on the evils of Canadian trade practices, with softpeddling on America's). 

MFAT has a Tariff FinderMFAT has a Tariff Finder. Click the Exporting button; you're pretending to be a NZ-based exporter. Then compare tariffs on your exports if you're exporting to China, and if you're exporting to America. You can find China among the FTA partner countries on the drop-down list; the United States is on the non-FTA partner list. 

When NZ got its FTA with the UK, people made a big deal about onions now getting tariff-free access to the UK. So let's check onions. The US charges 0.83 cents/kg; no tariffs for entry into China. 

Is the Chinese ambassador wrong when he says that China has been a more reliable trade partner for New Zealand than the US has been? 

NZ trade with China can be subject to holdups at the ports if the Chinese government is mad at us - and what happened with Australian wine is concerning. 

But NZ trade with the US depends on madness in American farm states and whatever populism Congress wishes to appease [and trade with Canada is even worse - America at least tries to do its protectionism within the rules; Canada signs agreements it knows full well it will immediately break]. 

Anyway. 

If US trade policy really were about global geostrategic stuff, rather than mainly being protectionism, they would be opening trade as Yglesias suggests. 

And while neither the Republicans nor the Democrats show much interest in being reliable trade partners for anyone, I'd be a bit nervous about AUKUS.