Why should we care about free trade?

The next time you head down to your High Street for a bit of weekend shopping, take a minute to look at where that pair of jeans you’re eyeing is made.

Chances are, they will have been made in Bangladesh, Vietnam or even Indonesia, stitched together by a worker in a factory somewhere, and then shipped over to you at a fraction of the cost these jeans would have set you back a few decades ago.

How does this happen?

Free trade.

Simply put, it’s the practice of removing restrictions on imports and exports between countries.

The more you lower tariffs – or taxes that countries put on goods coming from elsewhere to protect their own industries – the more buying and selling there will be, or so the theory goes.

Free trade evangelists will tell you that the optimum scenario is a future where there will be zero tariffs on goods going from one country to another, and we will all be buying what we need from country A because we will be able to sell them the things they don’t have from country B. Read more…