Logic, Economics, and Protectionist Nationalists.

• Author: Lemieux, Pierre
• Position: BRIEFLY NOTED

On July 1, three Republican lieutenant governors published in The Hill an op-ed celebrating the implementation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). The agreement replaced the former North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is basically a North American imitation of the free-trade-handicapped, trade-unionfriendly, and environment-cheesy Transpacific Partnership that President Trump previously eschewed. (See "Is NAFTA 2.0 Better than Nothing?" Winter 2018-2019.)

Barely a month later, Trump unilaterally reimposed tariffs on some aluminum imported from Canada.

Export plague/ For the authors and ghost writers of the Hill piece, the only benefit of "free trade" is that it promotes U.S. exports. The USMCA, the authors glowingly wrote, will "increase U.S. annual agricultural exports by $2.2 billion." This crowing claim comes just a few lines after the statement that "agriculture is what puts food on the table, literally and metaphorically." They better take their "metaphorically" very literally because exported agricultural products actually take food away from American tables in order to feed foreigners. If agricultural products were not exported, they would flood the American market, push food prices down, and fill national stomachs. But logic is not the protectionist nationalists' strong point.

Neither is their economics. By definition, exports use national resources to produce goods (say, wheat) and services (such as a university education or foreign tourists' accommodation) to be consumed by foreigners. If these goods and services were not consumed by foreigners, they would be consumed by domestic consumers, or the resources used to make them would be released to produce other goods and services that domestic consumers want or inputs that domestic producers could use. You would think that a rational nationalist would consider exports a plague.

Now, consider imports, which by definition use foreign resources to produce goods and services for the benefit of domestic consumers or producers. You would think a nationalist would glowingly welcome imports. (With a bit of mischievousness, one can imagine a national protectionist politician exclaiming, "Let's have our cars manufactured by those Mexican criminals. Mexico will pay!")

Consumers through the wringer / Why do protectionist nationalists believe the exact contrary? Why do they favor exports and blame imports? One reason is that nationalism is typically an emotional...