POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY JOHN IBBITSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
If this is true, why is creepy Harper pursuing the nightmare
of perimeter security with the U.S.?
The column is little more than reverse-psychology Harper
boosterism.
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A reader writes:
"Free trade isn't
so great when one partner is WAY bigger than the other."
In economics we know that the smaller partner in a
free-trade deal gains disproportionately compared to the larger one.
That is why all free-trade deals with the U.S. are complex:
the U.S. tries to gain maximum advantage out of that known starting point.
In fact, many U.S. free trade deals are little more than
enticements to small countries to sign on to voluntary American involvement and
interference.
Such deals mean the U.S. only has to threaten to abrogate
the treaty to hold a genuine hammer over the head of a small country.
All of the deals with places in South America and Central
America are of precisely that nature.
And what has Harper done in these matters?
Dutifully run down to Central America to sign parallel
agreements in keeping with American policy - these deals have all been
virtually economically worthless to Canada and represent zero Canadian
initiative.
I haven't seen a sign of what Ibbitson is blubbering about.
In fact, Harper's is the most cringing and servile
government in our history with regard to America and its interests.
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"Free-trade is a
myth."
That statement is certainly true.
True free trade exists only in theory, just as the form of
economic organization we call perfect competition exists only in theory.
All free-trade agreements are forms of managed trade,
managed according to some negotiated set of rules.
The free trade of classical economics is beneficial to all
partners, however the smaller and less sophisticated economy - the one making
the greatest economic gains - has to make the largest adjustments.
That means that while the economy as a whole gains,
individual regions and industries can suffer badly in the transition. Canada
certainly experienced this under North American free trade.
Keenly aware of the vast size of its markets and their
attraction to smaller countries, the United States never, never signs a
free-trade agreement without squeezing maximum geo-political advantage out of
it.
The geo-political price may in fact outweigh the economic
gains to the smaller partner in the view of many citizens of the smaller
country.
You do not get anything for free, and certainly not in free
trade agreements.
