| > This is wrong, misguided and naive. I'd appreciate it if you didn't jump straight to insults. > International trade when done with effective reciprocity and managing the trade deficit, can lead to competition on a larger scale, better outcome for consumers and specialization in particular aspect of manufacturing or services. I didn't say international trade should be stopped entirely. "Free trade" isn't "all trade". I'd appreciate it if you didn't strawman me. A part of the myth is the idea that free trade means perfect competition. No, it means a massive existing company can easily buy up local competitors and ensure that competition ceases entirely. > Even domestically, specialization is how human species became to me. If humans continued to be inwards looking and never engaged in barter-trade or any kind of bilateral exchange either with monetary instrument or goods/services; we would still be caves. This ignores the many cases where countries have protected local industries despite these industries existing elsewhere producing far better products and being far more competitive, and been wildly successful because of it. And again, I never said "no trade ever at all allowed because all trade is bad". > National to international trade is just one more step in the expansion of trade that we all benefit from. We have proof that it works when all parties are rational and cooperative. If we found aliens on another planet, it would only make sense to trade with them (just increasing the abstraction layer from national to international to interplanetary). I never said otherwise. Trade is fine. Foreign companies crowding out local industries to the point that local jobs are primarily low quality and low paying is not (see the number of countries that are relegated to production of fabrics and other low-cost goods). |