Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Without explicitly saying so, your report on Americans who go to great lengths to “buy American” reveals one of the many benefits of free trade – namely, freedom to choose (“Buying 100% Made in America Is Really, Really Hard. These People Are Trying.” May 25). While we free traders believe that “Buy American” enthusiasts are economically misinformed – their efforts to “buy American” do not, contrary to their conviction, make the American economy stronger – we, unlike protectionists, have no wish to restrict fellow citizens’ freedom to spend their money as they choose.
We free traders rely on persuasion and not the protectionists’ preferred tool, coercion. We free traders are content to inform “Buy American” enthusiasts that any American production that might be increased as a result of their efforts is offset by American production that is decreased as a result of their efforts. Americans cannot produce, say, more cheese graters and dress shirts without producing fewer, say, machine tools and medicines.
We free traders also note that the “Made in” labels that “Buy American” devotees use to guide their purchases do not mean what these devotees think these labels mean. In today’s global economy, the great majority of manufactured goods consists of parts and ideas from around the world, including the U.S.. A “Made in” label on some good reveals only where that good’s final assembly occurred. Bath towels labeled “Made in Turkey” might well be made of cotton grown in Texas, dyed with pigments from Germany, woven on a loom made in India, and shipped to the U.S. on a freighter made in Korea and in a shipping container manufactured in Denmark. That label would be more accurate if it instead read “Final Processing Done in Turkey” – or, more accurate still, “Made on Earth.”
And yet, regardless of the poor economic understanding of these “Buy American” enthusiasts, I and other free traders – unlike protectionists – respect and defend the right of each and every one of our fellow Americans to spend his or her money in whatever peaceful ways he or she chooses.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
