[adventured]

> No country has ever produced domestic prosperity by restricting trade.

Correction, all countries that have ever existed restrict trade, and all of the most prosperous nations today heavily control their trade across nearly every industrial segment. The sole variance is the level of restriction or tariff that they utilize depending on their context or skill at trade & production.

That includes present day Germany (a big restrictor of trade, heavily tilting their export/import ratio to a $300 billion trade surplus), France, Britain, Japan. Even while the US market is more free than most when it comes to trade, it also heavily controls & restricts trade using tariffs and global trade bodies.

That particularly includes China, which has dramatically restricted trade into their nation. They've done so on purpose in order to buy time to build up their domestic giants, which has worked extremely well for them. They've been allowed to have their cake and eat it too for decades.

By itself, China proves that you can get extraordinarily prosperous utilizing trade restriction policies under the right circumstances.

[conanbatt]

In spite of those restrictions, not thanks to them.

All the richest countries we have today have been among the list of richest since before and after great changes in their protectionist policies.