Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Roger Severino insists that the Heritage Foundation under its president Kevin Roberts still supports free markets and free trade, “but” – the “but” is predictable – “we’ll pursue those goods without sacrificing our love of faith and family, our national security, the innocence of our children or loyalty to the U.S.” (Letters, January 2).
What in Hayek’s name does this qualification mean? Impossible to tell, except that it’s sufficiently capacious and vague as to reveal that Heritage supports free markets and free trade except when it doesn’t. And given Mr. Roberts’s express rejection of what he calls the “outdated trade policies” prior to Trump – policies, such as NAFTA, that opened global markets and reduced tariff rates – and his hearty applause for Trump’s protectionism, we can be sure that whatever “free trade” now means at Heritage, this meaning is quite the opposite of what “free trade” meant to Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and even Heritage’s long-time president, the late Ed Fuelner.
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
