Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 213 of Menzie Chinn’s and Douglas Irwin’s superb 2025 textbook, International Economics:

The past few decades have been an era of globalization. Most countries have moved to reduce trade barriers and take advantage of growing world trade. How have they done so? One way a country can reduce its tariff and non-tariff barriers is simply to act unilaterally. A unilateral tariff reduction occurs when a government decides to reduce its import duties on its own, independently of other countries. In recent years, many developing countries have chosen this path. When China, India, Vietnam, and other Asian countries opened up to world markets, they did so based on domestic political changes in favor of economic reforms, including a more open trade policy.

DBx: Yep.

Contrary to the claims of many protectionists, these Asian economies did not grow because of protectionist measures but, rather, only when they, largely on their own, reduced their protectionist measures. Nor did the growth of these countries’ economies occur at the expense of the United States. Americans grew richer as the people of these countries grew richer.