[kennywinker]

Free trade and corporate welfare are not opposites. By allowing free trade you allow companies to operate wherever the operating cost is lowest, while still selling to the residents of your region. Incentivizing local production (by tarriffing imports) means business operate locally, and importantly, pay taxes locally. You can call that corporate welfare, but for many cases I think that misses the mark.

[jstanley]

By allowing free trade you allow companies to operate wherever is most efficient.

This reduces costs, and therefore reduces prices (through competition). Everybody is a winner (apart from the previously-protected businesses who now have to compete on a level playing field).

[Spivak]

> wherever is most efficient

This is only true when all actors play by the same rules. Without this requirement the most efficient places to operate are where there are the fewest labor and environmental protections. I would 100% be in favor of eliminating tariffs to countries that meet the same standards but its silly to say that we're better off exploiting not-quite-slave labor.

[mrtksn]

>I would 100% be in favor of eliminating tariffs to countries that meet the same standards

That’s the current situation with the EU. Turns out the UK is not happy with that.

[ralfn]

The British upper class wants the freedom to abuse their lower class more and they sold this nonsense to them with a spiel about sovereignty.

Thank God the Brits have such a taste for irony. They'll be feasting on this one for the better part of a decade.

[Pfhreak]

Everyone, that is, except the people who have to live with the externalities that come with chasing efficiency.

Some of those places that are more efficient are more efficient because, hey, they don't regulate emissions. Or they don't have strict safety standards. Or they don't require employers to take care of injured workers.

Clearly, not everybody is a winner.