… believes that his fellow citizens should be forcibly restrained from spending their money as they choose if even one other person, anywhere on earth, is forcibly restrained from spending his or her money as he or she chooses.
This protectionist alleges – or implies, in his arguments for trade restrictions – that the denial of even a single foreigner’s freedom to trade suffices to make all trade ‘managed’ or ‘unfree.’ The protectionist, insisting that his fellow citizens do not really gain by being left free to trade in light of the foreigner’s condition, leaps illogically to the conclusion that his own government is duty-bound to subject its own citizens to the same condition as the unfortunate foreigner.
The protectionist, it cannot be too often repeated, believes that, as long as even a single foreigner has his or her access to goods and services artificially restricted, then his own fellow citizens are enriched by having their access to goods and services artificially restricted.
