Donald Trump is showing strength in the final stretch of the presidential race. There is at least a 50% chance that he wins, and if he does, one of the first questions to confront him will be what to do about tariffs and sanctions on America’s trade with other countries. Trump, a friend of tariffs, has been mum about sanctions, but it is relatively clear that he is more favorable toward trade restrictions as political leverage than, e.g., President Biden has been.
The conservatives who root for Trump’s return to the White House are split on the free-trade issue. One faction favors the traditional liberal practice of unrestricted trade; the other takes a very different approach.
To understand this conflict, and to see why the free-trade proponents are wrong, we should remind ourselves of how young the concept of free global trade actually is.
When the Cold War ended in 1991, the world rapidly abandoned the bloc-based trade systems that until then had dominated the post-World War II era. A concerted global effort sought to open every continent, every country, to the unhindered flow of goods, services, and capital.
In the wake of the free-trade movement came propositions for free migration as well. The economic idea behind it was that people are just another factor of production—labor—which is necessary alongside capital. If the latter can flow free, the argument went, then it was only logical that the former could do so as well.
The 1990s was one of the most peaceful in modern history. The tranquility and global integration that the ’90s inspired began in the ruins of the Berlin Wall—and many of us thought it would end in the debris after the 9/11/2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington.
It did not. The force of globalization, and with it, the winds of free trade and liberalized migration, continued to set the terms for the world well into the new century. However, in the 2010s, a gradual counter-movement began making itself known. Protesting what were seen as the negative economic effects of free trade and globalization, this movement became known under many different monikers.
There was the ‘tea party’ in America, which morphed into the MAGA movement under President Trump’s first term. Here, the focus was on the economic stagnation that a sizable portion of the American middle class found itself trapped in. Subsequently, its focus was expanded to the problems with illegal immigration; the reinvigorated alliance of voters currently backing Trump for a second term as president has embraced reforms to both trade and immigration.
In Europe, a loosely comparable movement began with its spotlight on immigration and expanded from there to economic issues.
Writ large, these new movements on the respective Atlantic shores had in common a fledgling idea that nations matter more than free trade and free migration. In recent years, this idea has taken a more clearly delineated form under the moniker of national conservatism. With the focus on the nation-state as a cornerstone of an advanced, peaceful, and prosperous human civilization, the purpose behind national conservatism is to shift focus away from the zealous emphasis on the super-national promotion of free trade and free migration and put the nation-state back on the map again.
The term ‘national conservatism’ is rarely if ever used in politics and public policy; so far, the national conservative body of ideas has mostly inspired conversations at a higher level. This is unfortunate. As the public policy conversation currently goes, especially in Europe, the defense of the nation-state is being associated with violent protests in Britain and Ireland against illegal immigration. Mainstream media seizes upon the opportunity and tries to attach the general idea of the nation-state to racism—the globalist movement’s primary derogatory label.
It goes without saying that the defense of the nation-state has nothing to do with humanity being divided into races. Any accusation to that effect is ludicrous. Nevertheless, the national-conservative movement would benefit significantly from broadening its intellectual efforts. It is time for defenders of the nation-state to seize the initiative in the debate over global free trade.
While there are many advantages to open trade relations between countries, free trade in its pure form—unrestricted international flows of goods, services, and capital—is not only unattainable but undesirable. The arguments against free trade are often under-appreciated, even among conservative free-trade skeptics.
Let us begin with the undesirability of the free flow of goods, services, and capital. We will leave labor out of this, so we can decouple the free-trade debate from immigration.
Our modern economies are built on the eminent principles of capitalism and free markets. The capitalist economy is unsurpassed in its ability to elevate people out of poverty, inspire entrepreneurship and innovation, and secure the most prosperous path through life for all of us.
At the same time, there is a paradox inherent to the capitalist system, one that makes the capitalist the worst enemy of the very system he prospers from. In his rational—and for all of us desirable—pursuit of profits, the capitalist generates value for customers and creates jobs for a lot of people. However, his success also affords him considerable economic power: the more of his competition that the capitalist can eliminate, the more profits he makes.
As the capitalist gradually monopolizes his industry, his market dominance eventually forces the free market to cease operations; the economic evolution that is unique to capitalist economies grinds to a halt.
Consider now the same capitalist monopolization effort on a global scale. Suppose one mining company is able to buy up all the cobalt mines in Congo. Controlling almost 75% of the world’s production of cobalt, this company can now underprice cobalt miners everywhere else in the world.
Based on the principle of the free flow of capital, which is an integrated component of free trade, the Congolese mining company can now transfer enough money to each country where a cobalt mine goes bankrupt. Bit by bit, it can buy up the remaining 25% of the world’s supply. Given how essential cobalt has become in recent years, due primarily to the emergence of electric vehicles, this global monopoly means incredible profits for the Congolese company—but what is the benefit for the rest of the world?
The risk of market-crushing concentration of economic power, in the name of the pursuit of profits, is just as prevalent globally as it is on the national level, but the consequences are far more dire when they have worldwide reach. This is why free trade is undesirable.
As mentioned earlier, it is also unattainable. The best evidence of this is the rapid growth of BRICS as a trade system alternative to the Western concept of free trade. There are, primarily, two reasons why BRICS is expanding, the first of which is the West’s clumsy and habitual use of sanctions against countries whose policies the West—a.k.a., the U.S. government—finds undesirable. Regardless of the moral virtue (or lack thereof) in these sanctions, it is a fact that they distort, and even eliminate free trade.
Ironically, in order to preserve the freedom of international economic exchange, some countries have distanced themselves from the U.S.-based system for trade and economic cooperation and lined up to join BRICS instead. At the same time—and this brings us to the second reason why BRICS is growing—this new system of international economic relations is premised upon the national interests of all participating countries. Russia is not in BRICS to subject its economy to fierce competition from Chinese or Indian manufacturers; it is in BRICS to balance the need for trade against the desire of Moscow to exercise power and influence on par with the political and philosophical interests of the Russian government.
The recognition that national interests may supersede the premise of free trade does not mean that we condone the national interests of other countries. We only recognize the mechanisms by which good countries and bad ones subject trade to the pursuit of their own, specific national interests. In Russia’s case, the goal is to win the war in Ukraine; from the Western perspective, the national interest to punish Russia for its invasion has taken precedence over free trade with the country.
As the Russia-Ukraine example illustrates, we cannot have free trade as an overarching principle for international economic relations. Russia reorients its trade to further its national interests; if we, based on principle, sought free trade with Russia—how would that end? What message would we convey to the Ukrainian people?
What would be the message to our fellow citizens? How can we have free trade with a country that most people understand to be an enemy of the West?
From a national-conservative perspective, we recognize the permanence of national values, and of the interests of the nation-state. We also recognize the limitations of capitalism and the free market. Therefore, we see international economic relations not as something that supersedes the nation, but as a resource for national economic, social, and cultural strength.
Conditioned accordingly, those relations are important—but only for instrumental reasons. If it is in our nation’s interest to develop trade with other nations, then let’s make it happen; if trade can harm vital national interests and values, then it must be restricted.
