Why Free Trade Doesn't Work by Ian Fletcher

Thoughtful critique from a conservative viewpoint

In this video, author Ian Fletcher, a research fellow at the U.S. Business & Industry Council, explains why free trade doesn't work and talks about his book with the same title. This talk was given at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on July 16, 2010.

"Free trade and not having international trade are not the same thing. What we want is a reasonable balance between free markets and reasonable and prudent regulation. That's a real conservative value - reasonable, prudence, and understanding our limits. [...]

"It's easy enough to understand why free trade is not the best policy. It never was the best policy. The people who founded this country and ran it for 150 years understood that. [...]

"We're already in a trade war with the Chinese. We're not at peace with them. Right now we're basically engaging in unilateral surrender. [...]

"To rely on ideological thinking to solve problems like our trade situation today, it's just not going to get you very far. It's just a very crude, sort of bumper-sticker kind of analysis."

This is a 3 part video. After his opening remarks in part 1, Fletcher takes questions from the audience. For the full discussion, view Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Read more at http://www.freetradedoesntwork.com/.

http://www.usbic.net/people/sanfrancisco/ianfletcher/