Free Trade is better for American society than Protectionism

"Free Trade Undermines Policies for the Social Good" No, Free Trade is merely an agreement between countries. Free Trade does not regulate how countries are supposed to dictate their domestic policies. Free Trade-"a system of trade between nations in which there are no special taxes placed on imports" http://www.merriam-webster.com... "Things such as Labor Unions, Environmental protection, minimum wage, child labor, health and safety standards causes prices of goods to go up. Since it would be cheaper to produce the same products in places that don't have these, free trade allows them to move to those countries and avoid those policies. " Your mistaken. Many countries within the European Union and in the EEA have labor unions, environmental protection, wage floors, high health and high safety standards. The European Union has European Economic Area(EEA) which is Free Trade between EU member states and a few EFTA members states. Countries in the EU and EFTA have more of these "social goods" than the United States. They are engaged in Free Trade. http://www.efta.int... "While Protectionism makes everyone play on the same field, and even encourages countries to adopt some of those polices to try to avoid tariffs, or quotas. " Protectionism does not "make everyone play on the same field" as Con would have you believe. Let us revisit the Tariff Reform debate in early 20th century Britain. The debate for Tariff Reform was because most of the countries Great Britain traded with had tariffs. Great Britain was a free trader. So they wouldn't "play on the same field." I would argue Protectionism can lead to tireless imperialism as well. As Joe Chamberlain, Cecil Rhodes, and others knew that for Protectionism to work effectively is to have more capital than other countries. http://www.jstor.org... ""While corporate profits soar, individual wages stagnate, held at least partly in check by the brave new fact of off shoring -- that millions of Americans' jobs can be performed at a fraction of the cost in developing nations near and far"" Protectionism is crony capitalism. Corporations are allowed to sap the American populace in uncompetitive markets. Corporations are allowed to reap more profits under Protectionism than under Free Trade. Murray Rothbard- Protectionism and the Destruction of Prosperity http://mises.org... Corporate profits are increasing because there is a higher rate of consumption(1). People a century ago did not have the cpaacity to consume as much as we do in today's time. (1)http://www.pbs.org... "individual wages stagnate" Wages are relative to industry. If your thinking about how Walmart and McDonald's. Think again, most employees only stay and work between five-six months at either. Employees who work for such a short period of time have a limited amount of productivity due to their lack of experience. "When countries can make the same products at a lower price than America then those jobs move there causing unemployment. 2,273,392 jobs were outsourced in 2011" The products tend to be inferior which is something the Con forgot. My opponent has also equated the American population of over 300 million to a feeble 2 million. The interests of the mass is worth more than the interest of the few. The majority should consume less so that 2 million can have jobs. More Americans should risk falling into poverty to consume American products(2). To compare the suffering of 2 million does not equate to the suffering of 300 million. What the Con doesn't say is that job losses are temporary, not permanent. People will usually be payed around the same wage they were previously employed at because of their productivity. For example, an automotive engineer will not be flipping burgers at McDonald's if his company outsourced his job. He will be able to find another engineering job at a different firm because he is a skilled worker. (2)http://www.huffingtonpost.com... "Also trade deficit caused by free trade creates more unemployment. " No, it doesn't(3). Foreign firms invest in the United States and employ Americans. Seventeen million Americans are employed because of Free Trade(4). (3)http://www.cato.org... (4)http://blog.heritage.org... " Free Trade causes Trade Deficits.........U.S. Trade Deficits Grow More Than 440% with FTA Countries, but Decline 7% with Non-FTA Countries" Of course, many countries are consuming more then they produce. The United States is one of the best examples of this phenomena. Trade deficits are not bad(5). Americans are consuming more Mexican goods. We are helping to employ more Mexicans while we reap the benefits of their hard labor. (5)http://www.radford.edu... "Free Trade creates undesirable interdependency" Interdependency is desirable , Free Trade agreements are consensual. "The whole European Union would be effected eventually effecting the whole world. The economic downturn in one country quickly effects all other countries." This is inconsequential because it is inherently part of the economic cycle. Busts will happen inevitably in free market economies. Countries have recovered from them. The United States and the United Kingdom have had multiple booms and busts but are still some of the strongest economies in the world. " Countries that were self-sufficient like the USSR or Japan" The USSR are was a command economy. Of course unemployment would be low because they didn't even have a free market. The United States was far superior in economic development compared to the USSR(6). Japan during the Great Depression was involved in a war in Manchuria during the Great Depression . War stimulates the economy and create jobs. Post-World War 2 Japan was not self sufficient. (6)http://www.foia.cia.gov...