The Benefits of Free Trade

Trade is an important transfer that is vital to the abundance of a country. International trade allows countries to exchange their goods and can improve their economies. Many businesses within the United States dislike international imports because they reduce their business within the U.S. Some people believe business can be improved within the United States by imposing tariffs on imports. Tariffs are taxes on imported goods from other countries. Others who favor international trade believe it’s beneficial to establish trade agreements. One trade agreement is NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which President George H.W. Bush signed on December 8th, 1993. The treaty included the countries Canada, Mexico, and the United States, and intertwined all of their economies. It eliminated most of the tariffs between the three countries and installed a supply chain, which is a network where different countries make specific parts of a product. Recently, President Trump has proposed that NAFTA be abolished, to promote products manufactured in the United States. This recent situation relates to the issue of the tariffs at the Philadelphia Convention. At the time of the convention, the Northern states’ economy was based on manufacturing, so they wanted to impose tariffs to promote American products. The South’s economy was agricultural based, and exported many goods to Great Britain. So Southerners feared that if tariffs were imposed on Britain’s goods, then Britain would do the same on products from the South, which would negatively affect the South’s economy. Trade can be very beneficial to a country, but states can have different opinions on whether tariffs are necessary, depending

Trade is something crucial to economic success in any country. The less difficult trade between two nations is, the easier both can benefit as nations, but the individuals of the nation benefit as well as there is easy access to foreign products. Most notable for most people here in the U.S. is NAFTA, which is the agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States. However, there is a large division on whether or not free trade is more harmful than it is good, and that protectionism is the way to go. In fact, the current president-elect Donald Trump is for limiting free trade and installing large restrictions in the form of tariffs and outsourcing costs to protect America, and is part of his plan to "Make America Great Again." Free trade is a more intelligent decision as there are a lot more benefits of free trade compared to protectionism including individual benefits and economic improvement.

Others view trade in a negative terms, arguing that is creates incentive for the united states companies to move jobs overseas at the price of American workers. Free trade lowers the price of goods at the shopping mall; opens foreign nations to american businesses, products, services and admits the united states to the global supply chain that brings new product, new jobs, and added economic growth to our shores.

“Free trade is an opportunity for the U.S. to provide financial help to some of the world's poorest countries”. How is this actually working for the better on poorest countries who are still trying to come to US for jobs? When the American people still can’t get them?

These export trade agreements, in the next two decades, will create thousands of available jobs, and also boost the GDP by approximately $25 billion, which benefits consumers, households and economic growth. There are several strategies under the new trade agreement that targets partnership and bring benefits:

United States trade policy is almost always debated in terms of the economic utility. So,Does free trade would raise or lower incomes? Does it help or even hurt United States industry? Does that create or destroy jobs? But behind statistics and anecdotes lie moral and assumptions about the human nature, the sovereignty of some individual, and the role of the government in free society. Free trade may deliver some goods and boost the efficiency, but is that morally superior to protectionism? It increases the total production, productivity and also efficiency.

In the recent 2016 election Mr. President, Donald J. Trump has repeatedly voiced his opinion about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). According to Tami Luhby from CNN (2016), Mr. President is quoted saying, “NAFTA is a disaster and one of the worst trade deals in history.” However, without NAFTA we would not be able to import nearly half of the goods we receive. For instance, Ford, one of the leading car manufactures is located in Mexico. With most of the cars America imports being from Mexico (Valdes-Dapena, 2016). With all the media hype surrounded around NAFTA it is hard to not let the media persuade you. However, I am here to explain why NAFTA is making our economy stronger and stronger every day.

While many see free trade beneficial not only to America, but to all nations as well, others would argue that the entire concept of free trade is now a major misconception. What has become commonplace in the U.S. economy is now “tradition” enough to discourage the very thought of disagreeing with free trade. The incorporation of this government deal has long since been a part of history, making it hard for one to plea the case of operating otherwise. Whether viewed as good or bad, analyzing and recognizing the various factors of free trade only serves as a fundamental measure in strengthening the argument.

The pro free-trade camp in this country has tried to sell free trade generally, and the WTO in particular, on the grounds that free trade in other countries is a good idea. When other countries drop their trade barriers, American companies export more, and consequently create more export-related jobs. All true enough, but what free-traders fail to talk about, and their silence is deafening, is that free trade in the United States is a good idea.

Free trade is an important economic policy that has been brought to the forefront of debate. Arguments have varied from the potential harm it brings to specific groups of people, to the idea that free trade is extremely beneficial in the increasing of competition and improving the nationwide economy. Free trade is a policy that practices removing restrictions such as tariffs, taxes, and bans, allowing for free participation among all kinds of economies and producers. In other words, free trade is a way to “break down” economic barriers. Comparative advantage is a term often used to support the policy of free trade. The theory of comparative advantage displays that if trading partners produce where there is the lowest opportunity cost, then

While free trade could potentially mean a lot of benefits, its superiority over protectionism is strictly theoretical, under the conditions that you disregard all the unique conditions of each country involved, and the possibility of exploitation of workers, resources and legal loopholes by large corporations. Realistically industries will be monopolized by whichever country that does it cheapest, thus making any competition in that industry from the other countries extremely unprofitable and unsustainable. Each country would only be able to focus on sectors that they have a comparative advantage in, while the other industries would stagnate, laying off masses of workers, causing high unemployment rates in the country. Furthermore, businesses are focused on their own profit so they’ll go for labour wherever it’s cheapest, which increases income disparity. Theoretically, free trade can bring about the largest amount of trade and aggregate wealth for everyone by making each country specialize in what it has an advantage in, to produce more for less, lowering the market prices to be more affordable, greatly boosting trade, and raising quality of life. Essentially free trade aims to maximize income for each country under the contemporary conditions. However even if everything miraculously goes as planned and that hypothetical situation is reached, even under these perfect conditions free trade will allow no further development of industry.

From what my research has shown, free trade is a disadvantage to the United States because of its inability to provide more jobs here. But globally free trade is an advantage, because of tariff removals. No tariffs leads to the ability of lower prices for buyers. Producers can always find another location where jobs are cheaper, manufacturing costs are cheaper, and taxes are cheaper. So, in conclusion, for America the inability to make jobs is worse than the cost of goods being cheaper.

Being the world 's largest economy, the United States is also largest exporter and importer of goods and services. American economic growth relies heavily on trade. According to a recent report on NAFTA, “Since 1992, nearly 20 million new jobs have been created in the U.S., in part due to the 1994 NAFTA agreement. Total trade between the NAFTA partners -- the U.S., Canada, and Mexico -- rose from $293 billion in 1993 to more than $475 billion in 1997, and has increased since. ” (Bowman, Free Trade). It is obvious evidence that international trade is beneficial to the US economy, at least in the 1990s.

This section discusses the benefits of trade agreements on the U.S job market. The additional trade increased combined output of goods and services by around $300 billion. This in effect created or sustained jobs for 5.4 million Americans. This is the highest job market boost U.S had in recent times. Free trade reduces U.S jobs, but the statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in fact rejects that thought. They claimed that U.S manufactures added 800,000 of net jobs. After the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect the unemployment rate was reduced. The bureau also claimed that the remuneration tied to jobs related to international trade was 18% higher than other jobs. (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2015)

Free trade is a policy in which the government does not interfere against imports or impedes with exports by applying tariffs (Encyclopedia, 2015). Free trade is about removing barriers like tariffs, quotas, and other restrictions. Tariffs are taxes that the countries enforce on imported goods and services, they are set in place to make trade harder. This ultimately causes the price of goods and services for consumers to be more expensive. Quotas are a limited quantity countries put on imports and exports. Barriers to trade is a government limitation on the amount of international goods and services. Countries decide to put up barriers on trade for the sole purpose of protecting their own economy and interests. The United States has free trade agreements with 20 countries, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Tran-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). There are many advantages and disadvantages with free trade agreements.