Free trade should be a norm

Well time for me to rebut what my opponent has said. 1. "Floods [of] another countries market [Sic]," can easily be balanced with more exports by Brazil. And actually, I used Brazil in my examples of why trade barriers and protectionism are bad - the 2012 import flood was likely caused by US subsidies. You missed the whole point of the argument. When the United States floods the Brazilian market it devalues the currency of Brazil, meaning that can not export more. They have to stop free trade or risk a currency collapse. Also it wasn't because subsidies, it was because of the loose economic policies the United States has. And free trade does not "cause protectionism;" that is as fallacious as it is ridiculous. "It"s clear that we have to take measures to defend ourselves," she added, rebuffing claims that Brazil"s measures to respond to these monetary pressures are protectionist. "I said defend, not protect. To defend is different, defend means " that we cannot leave our manufacturing sector to be cannibalised." These are direct words from, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff. It clearly shows in order to protect Brazil's economy, they will have to go towards more of a protectionist economic policy, because of free trade. 2. So many issues. First, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which contrived that "1 million jobs number," is significantly liberally biased (as revealed by even a cursory glance at Wikipedia). A biased estimate is none at all. This is an Ad hominen argument at best. Since you didn't provide numbers that NAFTA has actually created jobs you have conceded that job loss happened because of NAFTA. As a student of economics and econometrics, I can assure you that modeling these phenomena is a notoriously difficult task. And even if there were a credible fall in jobs, it is a. not necessarily attributable to NAFTA, and b. as I explained, not only temporary, but beneficial in the long run. The report directly stated that there was a loss of 1 million net jobs because of NAFTA. Also there was a 5 million jobs loss in manufacturing over that time of NAFTA implementation. While all manufacturing jobs were not loss because of NAFTA many were. On the second point I have pointed out how manufacturing jobs are key to the economy, and this point went conceded. The shift away from manufacturing plus continued globalization of technology means we will continue to lose jobs if we continue free trade. There is no benefit to losing jobs, and a degree in manufacturing can't turn into a degree of health care, which means brain drain will occur. Brain drain will also hurt the economy as well, so there are a couple instance's were trade will destroy jobs and hurt the economy. And, this is only one data point, and NAFTA is only one example of a FTA (free trade agreement). You didn't give any examples of a FTA being successful, so I still hold the empirical data in this category. 3. Wait what? I smell some grammatical and logical crimes... I am not advocating the abolition of regulation, simply the encouragement of trade. Regulation does not help consumer confidence; a strong economy does. And my argument, at its core, is not about regulation. I will concede the point on regulations, but still maintain that tariffs help competition in the long run. 4. No no no no no! Free trade empowers the poor! As I pointed out, protectionism hurts exports in all countries, especially poor and developing ones. Look at my discussion of Brazil. Protectionism hurt the country, and free trade has helped the farms. In addition, the "article" you cite fails to take into account the massive success of trade. Look at China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Poland, South Korea and others - they all share a similar story of a poor country turned (or turning) into a rich one. Due. To. Trade. First your contradict yourself with Brazil. Brazil's economy shouldn't be a top economy because of protectionism, but then you list their economy is successfully because of trade. Which one is it? Then there is a difference between a countries wealth and the wealth of their people. Mexico has a 500 billion dollar trade partnership with the United States, but still have 20 million people in food poverty. Another example is listed here http://www.theguardian.com... For every dollar spent by a US consumer on imported asparagus from Peru, 70 cents stayed in the US, the industry explained. The money goes not to Peruvian farmers but to US supermarkets and wholesalers, and to US shippers, distributors, importers, and storage owners. Just 30 cents stays in Peru. (The UK too imports most of its out-of-season asparagus from Peru.) But Peru doesn't even get the full benefit of that 30 cents, because a large portion of the 30 cents Peru makes comes back to the US anyway: it is spent by Peruvians on US seed, US materials for processing, US fertiliser and US pesticides. US-based vegetable corporations, Del Monte and General Mills Green Giant, have been able to enjoy lower land values, cheap labour and low environmental costs by moving some of their production to Peru. The handful of corporations that dominate the global markets in seed, fertiliser, pesticides, trading, distribution and retailing take care of the rest. Does that sound like free trade empowering the poor? No it doesn't free trade will always hurt the poor. 5. Economic nationalism is a horrible idea. The biggest reasons for the world's success over the past 200 years have been technological innovation, intellectual innovation, capitalism, democracy, and trade and openness between countries. First this was an example of how countries who tried free trade are now moving away from it. Latin American realized that "free trade" really means US exploiting their markets. Free trade hasn't been the answer in Latin American and shouldn't be the answer anywhere. Economic nationalism offers an alternative to free trade.