And his colleagues duly buckled. If Gramm saw red at the budget gimmicks, the Africa trade stuff ought to leave him foaming. Two in five Africans live on less than one dollar a day. As Gramm himself testified last year, textile protectionism aimed at the cheaper clothes that poor families buy amounts to a regressive tax. The textile lobby is powerful, of course, but the real answer is that the case for imports has been neglected for so long that most people have forgotten it.
Comparative advantage is complicated.
Yes, up to a point. But if politicians can sell the idea of paying down the national debt, the principles of free trade need not be beyond them. The idea that you are hurt by foreign imports should be as easily dismissed as the notion that you are hurt by your local food store. Sure, you buy groceries from the store, and the store never reciprocates by buying anything from you. The writer is a member of the editorial page staff.