A front-page article in today’s Wall Street Journal discusses the elimination (as of January 1, 2005) of a quota system that controls access of foreign clothing suppliers to the U.S. market. Here’s the first sentence of the second paragraph of the story: “China, by all accounts, will be the main beneficiary.”
The story goes on to explain that China will gain because it will export much more to the U.S.
This account misses the most-important point — the vital, very reason for commerce: consumption. The ultimate, main beneficiaries of the elimination of this protectionist quota will be American consumers.
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