3 ms·
You don't need 3000 pages of legalese written by corporate lobbyists to have a trade agreement. Instead, you need to declare unilateral free trade with a single
by clarkmoody 10y ago
You don't need 3000 pages of legalese written by corporate lobbyists to have a trade agreement. Instead, you need to declare unilateral free trade with a single sentence:
We hereby impose no tariffs, quotas, or restrictions on
goods imported from _____.
Yes, free trade hurts some jobs at home. Yes, they may never come back. But for the vast majority, their standard of living goes up with the reduced cost of imported goods.
- twblalock 10y agoLife is not nearly that simple. First of all, there is rarely a good reason to accept unrestricted imports from another country unless that country also allows unrestricted imports from you -- and even then, it might not be a good idea. Second, trade doesn't just "happen" -- it's not like someone shows up with a boat full of shipping containers and the port unloads it and starts selling the stuff to passers-by out of a booth in the parking lot. There are tons of safety regulations, customs laws, retail distribution agreements, etc. that need to be negotiated before it is legal to bring stuff from one country into another. That often requires coordination between governments to make sure their laws are compatible, applications get sent to the right departments and actually get processed, inspectors are hired and sent to the ports, etc. So, before any corporate lobbying is involved or anyone even mentions copyright and IP law, a trade agreement is already extremely complex.