There are few measures we could take that would do more to promote the cause of freedom at home and abroad. Let us live up to our destiny and set the pace not be reluctant followers.Ī prompt but gradual program would be to legislate that all import quotas or other quantitative restrictions be raised by 20% a year until they are so high they become irrelevant and can be abandoned, and that all tariffs be reduced by 1/10 of the present level in each of the next 10 years. We are a great nation and it ill behooves us to require reciprocal benefits from China, Mexico or Europe before we reduce a tariff on products from those countries. We, as they did, would experience an enormous accession of political and economic power. I believe that it would be far better for us to move to free trade unilaterally, as Britain did in the 19th century when it repealed the Corn Laws.

Self-interests coincide and do not conflict. We would of course be benefited even more if they reduce theirs but our benefiting does not require that they reduce tariffs. We would be benefited by dispensing with our tariffs even if other countries did not. Our tariffs hurt us as well as other countries. In truth, the situation is quite different. It makes it appear as if tariffs help the country imposing them but hurt other countries, as if when we reduce a tariff we give up something good and should get something in return in the form of a reduction in the tariffs imposed by other countries. In the second place, it fosters an erroneous view of the basic problem. In the first place, it ensures a slow pace. Given that we should move to free-trade, how should we do so? The method that we have tried to adopt is reciprocal negotiation of tariff reductions with other countries. In Milton Friedman’s 1962 classic book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman makes the case for unilateral free trade as a path to greater prosperity and freedom, regardless of what path our trading partners take:

Milton friedman 1962