… mistakes foreigners who seek to give to us more valuable goods (and services) than our ‘leaders’ have bargained for in trade agreements, for common thieves who seek to take from us valuable goods. That is, a protectionist is someone who believes it to be criminal for foreigners to give to us and – in his, the protectionist’s, clamoring for punitive taxes on peaceful people who purchase imports – noble for politically powerful fellow citizens to take from us.
Protectionism is a philosophy of plunder, thuggery, and theft masquerading as “trade policy.”
