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Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold economically liberal positions, while economic nationalist political parties generally support protectionism, the opposite of free trade.
Most nations are today members of the World Trade Organization multilateral trade agreements. States can unilaterally reduce regulations and duties on imports and exports, as well as form bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements. Free trade areas between groups of countries, such as the European Economic Area and the Mercosur , establish a free trade zone among members while creating a protectionist barrier between that free trade area and the rest of the world. Most governments still impose some protectionist policies that are intended to support local employment, such as applying to imports or Subsidy to exports. Governments may also restrict free trade to limit exports of natural resources. Other barriers that may hinder trade include import quotas, taxes and non-tariff barriers, such as regulatory legislation.
Historically, openness to free trade substantially increased from 1815 to the outbreak of World War I. Trade openness increased again during the 1920s, but collapsed (in particular in Europe and North America) during the Great Depression. Trade openness increased substantially again from the 1950s onwards (albeit with a slowdown during the 1973 oil crisis). Economists and economic historians contend that current levels of trade openness are the highest they have ever been.
Economists are generally supportive of free trade. There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare while free trade and the reduction of has a positive effect on economic growthSee P.Krugman, «The Narrow and Broad Arguments for Free Trade», American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, 83(3), 1993; and P. Krugman, Peddling Prosperity: Economic Sense and Nonsense in the Age of Diminished Expectations, New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1994.N. Gregory Mankiw, Economists Actually Agree on This: The Wisdom of Free Trade, New York Times (April 24, 2015): "Economists are famous for disagreeing with one another.... But economists reach near unanimity on some topics, including international trade."William Poole, Free Trade: Why Are Economists and Noneconomists So Far Apart, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, September/October 2004, 86(5), pp. 1: "most observers agree that 'the consensus among mainstream economists on the desirability of free trade remains almost universal.'" and economic stability. However, in the short run, liberalization of trade can cause unequally distributed losses and the economic dislocation of workers in import-competing sectors.
Most economists would recommend that even developing nations should set their tariff rates quite low, but the economist Ha-Joon Chang, a proponent of industrial policy, believes higher levels may be justified in developing nations because the productivity gap between them and developed nations today is much higher than what developed nations faced when they were at a similar level of technological development. Underdeveloped nations today, Chang believes, are weak players in a much more competitive system.Pugel (2007), International Economics, pp. 311–312. Counterarguments to Chang's point of view are that the developing countries are able to adopt technologies from abroad whereas developed nations had to create new technologies themselves and that developing countries can sell to export markets far richer than any that existed in the 19th century.
If the chief justification for a tariff is to stimulate infant industries, it must be high enough to allow domestic manufactured goods to compete with imported goods in order to be successful. This theory, known as import substitution industrialization, is largely considered ineffective for currently developing nations.
This has three effects on societal welfare. Consumers are made worse off because the consumer surplus (green region) becomes smaller. Producers are better off because the producer surplus (yellow region) is made larger. The government also has additional tax revenue (blue region). However, the loss to consumers is greater than the gains by producers and the government. The magnitude of this societal loss is shown by the two pink triangles. Removing the tariff and having free trade would be a net gain for society.
An almost identical analysis of this tariff from the perspective of a net producing country yields parallel results. From that country's perspective, the tariff leaves producers worse off and consumers better off, but the net loss to producers is larger than the benefit to consumers (there is no tax revenue in this case because the country being analyzed is not collecting the tariff). Under similar analysis, export tariffs, import quotas and export quotas all yield nearly identical results.
Sometimes consumers are better off and producers worse off and sometimes consumers are worse off and producers are better off, but the imposition of trade restrictions causes a net loss to society because the losses from trade restrictions are larger than the gains from trade restrictions. Free trade creates winners and losers, but theory and empirical evidence show that the gains from free trade are larger than the losses.
A 2021 study found that across 151 countries over the period 1963–2014, "tariff increases are associated with persistent, economically and statistically significant declines in domestic output and productivity, as well as higher unemployment and inequality, real exchange rate appreciation, and insignificant changes to the trade balance."
Quoting Harvard economics professor N. Gregory Mankiw, "Few propositions command as much consensus among professional economists as that open world trade increases economic growth and raises living standards". In a survey of leading economists, none disagreed with the notion that "freer trade improves productive efficiency and offers consumers better choices, and in the long run these gains are much larger than any effects on employment".
Paul Krugman stated that free trade is greatly beneficial to the world as a whole, and especially beneficial to people in poorer nations, since it allows them to increase their standards of living. He also stated in 2007 that, as the US trades more with less-industrialized countries whose workers are paid less than equivalent US workers (2007 wages in Mexico were 1/10 what they were in the US, and in China less than 1/20), increased trade with those countries will put downward pressure on unskilled labor rates in the US.
Economists who advocated free trade believed trade was the reason why certain civilizations prospered economically. For example, Smith pointed to increased trading as being the reason for the flourishing of not just Mediterranean cultures such as Egypt Eyalet, Ancient Greece and Roman Empire, but also of Bengal (East India) and Qing dynasty. Dutch Republic prospered greatly after throwing off Spanish Imperial rule and pursuing a policy of free trade. This made the free trade/mercantilist dispute the most important question in economics for centuries. Free trade policies have battled with Mercantilism, Protectionism, Isolationism, Socialism, Populism and other policies over the centuries.
The Ottoman Empire had liberal free trade policies by the 18th century, with origins in capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, dating back to the first commercial treaties signed with France in 1536 and taken further with capitulations in 1673, in 1740 which lowered duties to only 3% for imports and exports and in 1790. Ottoman free trade policies were praised by British economists advocating free trade such as J. R. McCulloch in his Dictionary of Commerce (1834), but criticized by British politicians opposing free trade such as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who cited the Ottoman Empire as "an instance of the injury done by unrestrained competition" in the 1846 Corn Laws debate, arguing that it destroyed what had been "some of the finest manufactures of the world" in 1812.
Trade in British America was regulated by the British mercantile system through the Acts of Trade and Navigation. Until the 1760s, few colonists openly advocated for free trade, in part because regulations were not strictly enforced (New England was famous for smuggling), but also because colonial merchants did not want to compete with foreign goods and shipping. According to historian Oliver Dickerson, a desire for free trade was not one of the causes of the American Revolution. "The idea that the basic mercantile practices of the eighteenth century were wrong", wrote Dickerson, "was not a part of the thinking of the Revolutionary leaders".Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution, p. 140.
Free trade came to what would become the United States as a result of the American Revolution. After the British Parliament issued the Prohibitory Act in 1775, blockading colonial ports, the Continental Congress responded by effectively declaring economic independence, opening American ports to foreign trade on 6 April 1776 – three months before declaring sovereign independence.Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, p. 238.
In March 1801, the Pope Pius VII ordered some liberalization of trade to face the economic crisis in the Papal States with the motu proprio Le più colte. Despite this, the export of national corn was forbidden to ensure the food for the Papal States.
In Britain, free trade became a central principle practiced by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Large-scale agitation was sponsored by the Anti–Corn Law League. Under the Treaty of Nanking, China opened five treaty ports to world trade in 1843. The first free trade agreement, the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty, was put in place in 1860 between Britain and France which led to successive agreements between other countries in Europe.
Many classical liberals, especially in 19th and early 20th century Britain (e.g. John Stuart Mill) and in the United States for much of the 20th century (e.g. Henry Ford and Secretary of State Cordell Hull), believed that free trade promoted peace. Woodrow Wilson included free-trade rhetoric in his "Fourteen Points" speech of 1918:
According to economic historian Douglas Irwin, a common myth about United States trade policy is that low tariffs harmed American manufacturers in the early 19th century and then that high tariffs made the United States into a great industrial power in the late 19th century. A review by the Economist of Irwin's 2017 book Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy notes:
Political dynamics would lead people to see a link between tariffs and the economic cycle that was not there. A boom would generate enough revenue for tariffs to fall, and when the bust came pressure would build to raise them again. By the time that happened, the economy would be recovering, giving the impression that tariff cuts caused the crash and the reverse generated the recovery. Mr Irwin also methodically debunks the idea that protectionism made America a great industrial power, a notion believed by some to offer lessons for developing countries today. As its share of global manufacturing powered from 23% in 1870 to 36% in 1913, the admittedly high tariffs of the time came with a cost, estimated at around 0.5% of GDP in the mid-1870s. In some industries, they might have sped up development by a few years. But American growth during its protectionist period was more to do with its abundant resources and openness to people and ideas.
According to Paul Bairoch, since the end of the 18th century, the United States has been "the homeland and bastion of modern protectionism". In fact, the United States never adhered to free trade until 1945. For the most part, the Jeffersonians strongly opposed protectionism. In the 19th century, statesmen such as Senator Henry Clay continued Alexander Hamilton's themes within the Whig Party under the name American System. The opposition Democratic Party contested several elections throughout the 1830s, 1840s and 1850s in part over the issue of the tariff and protection of industry.Larry Schweikart, What Would the Founders Say? (New York: Sentinel, 2011), pp. 106–124. The Democratic Party favored moderate tariffs used for government revenue only while the Whigs favored higher protective tariffs to protect favored industries. The economist Henry Charles Carey became a leading proponent of the American System of economics. This mercantilist American System was opposed by the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.
The fledgling Republican Party led by Abraham Lincoln, who called himself a "Henry Clay tariff Whig", strongly opposed free trade and implemented a 44% tariff during the Civil War, in part to pay for railroad subsidies and for the war effort and in part to protect favored industries. Congressman William McKinley (later to become President of the United States) introduced tariffs in 1890 which raised the average duty on imports to almost 50%, an increase designed to protect domestic industries and workers from foreign competition, as promised in the Republican platform. It represented protectionism, a policy supported by Republicans and denounced by Democrats. It was a major topic of fierce debate in the 1890 congressional elections, which gave a Democratic landslide. Democrats replaced the McKinley Tariff with the Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act in 1894, which lowered tariff rates.
During the interwar period, economic protectionism took hold in the United States, most famously in the form of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act which is credited by economists with the prolonging and worldwide propagation of the Great Depression. From 1934, trade liberalization began to take place through the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act.
In Europe, Inner Six formed the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 which became the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958. Two core objectives of the EEC were the development of a common market, subsequently renamed the single market, and establishing a customs union between its member states. After expanding its membership, the EEC became the European Union in 1993. The European Union, now the world's largest single market, has concluded free trade agreements with many countries around the world.
Some degree of protectionism is nevertheless the norm throughout the world. From 1820 to 1980, the average tariffs on manufactures in twelve industrial countries ranged from 11 to 32%. In the developing world, average tariffs on manufactured goods are approximately 34%.Chang (2003), Kicking Away the Ladder, p. 66 The American economist C. Fred Bergsten devised the bicycle theory to describe trade policy. According to this model, trade policy is dynamically unstable in that it constantly tends towards either liberalization or protectionism. To prevent falling off the bike (the disadvantages of protectionism), trade policy and multilateral trade negotiations must constantly pedal towards greater liberalization. To achieve greater liberalization, decision makers must appeal to the greater welfare for consumers and the wider national economy over narrower parochial interests. However, Bergsten also posits that it is also necessary to compensate the losers in trade and help them find new work as this will both reduce the backlash against globalization and the motives for trades unions and politicians to call for protection of trade.Destler, Mac and Noland, Marcus (July 2, 2014). Constant Ends, Flexible Means: C. Fred Bergsten and the Quest for Open Trade. Peterson Institute for International Economics.
In Kicking Away the Ladder, development economist Ha-Joon Chang reviews the history of free trade policies and economic growth and notes that many of the now-industrialized countries had significant barriers to trade throughout their history. The United States and Britain, sometimes considered the homes of free trade policy, employed protectionism to varying degrees at all times. Britain abolished the Corn Laws which restricted import of grain in 1846 in response to domestic pressures and reduced protectionism for manufactures only in the mid 19th century when its technological advantage was at its height, but tariffs on manufactured products had returned to 23% by 1950. The United States maintained weighted average tariffs on manufactured products of approximately 40–50% up until the 1950s, augmented by the natural protectionism of high transportation costs in the 19th century.Chang (2003), Kicking Away the Ladder, p. 17 The most consistent practitioners of free trade have been Switzerland, the Netherlands and to a lesser degree Belgium.Chang (2003), Kicking Away the Ladder, p. 59 Chang describes the export-oriented industrialization policies of the Four Asian Tigers as "far more sophisticated and fine-tuned than their historical equivalents".Chang (2003), Kicking Away the Ladder, p. 50
Arguments for protectionism fall into the economic category (trade hurts the economy or groups in the economy) or into the moral category (the effects of trade might help the economy but have ill effects in other areas). A general argument against free trade is that it represents neocolonialism in disguise. (2002). 9781843310273, Anthem Press. ISBN 9781843310273 The moral category is wide, including concerns about:
Economic arguments against free trade criticize the assumptions or conclusions of economic theories.
Domestic industries often oppose free trade on the grounds that lower prices for imported goods would reduce their profits and market share.William Baumol and Alan Blinder, Economics: Principles and Policy, p. 722. For example, if the United States reduced tariffs on imported sugar, sugar producers would receive lower prices and profits, and sugar consumers would spend less for the same amount of sugar because of those same lower prices. The economic theory of David Ricardo holds that consumers would necessarily gain more than producers would lose.Richard L. Stroup, James D. Gwartney, Russell S. Sobel, Economics: Private and Public Choice, p. 46. Since each of the domestic sugar producers would lose a lot while each of a great number of consumers would gain only a little, domestic producers are more likely to mobilize against the reduction in tariffs. More generally, producers often favor domestic subsidies and tariffs on imports in their home countries while objecting to subsidies and tariffs in their export markets.
Socialists frequently oppose free trade on the ground that it allows maximum exploitation of Labor movement by capital. For example, Karl Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto (1848): "The bourgeoisie ... has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – free trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation". Marx supported free trade, however, solely because he felt that it would hasten the social revolution. He also viewed the tendency to support protectionism out of spite for free trade to be unsound. That is because Marx viewed protectionism as a means for domestic firms to establish "large-scale" industry within its borders, which would inevitably make it dependent on the world market so that it could make more revenue for example. He also argues that protectionism does not stop a country from developing a domestic economic system that ironically mirrors competitive free trade. "It is in this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, that I vote in favor of free trade." Marx, Karl On the Question of Free Trade Speech to the Democratic Association of Brussels at its public meeting of January 9, 1848
Many anti-globalization groups oppose free trade based on their assertion that free-trade agreements generally do not increase the economic freedom of the poor or of the working class and frequently make them poorer.
Some opponents of free trade favor free-trade theory but oppose free-trade agreements as applied. Some opponents of NAFTA see the agreement as materially harming the common people, but some of the arguments are actually against the particulars of government-managed trade, rather than against free trade per se. For example, it is argued that it would be wrong to let subsidized corn from the United States into Mexico freely under NAFTA at prices well below production cost (dumping) because of its ruinous effects to Mexican farmers.
Research shows that support for trade restrictions is highest among respondents with the lowest levels of education. Hainmueller and Hiscox find:
that the impact of education on how voters think about trade and globalization has more to do with exposure to economic ideas and information about the aggregate and varied effects of these economic phenomena, than it does with individual calculations about how trade affects personal income or job security. This is not to say that the latter types of calculations are not important in shaping individuals' views of trade – just that they are not being manifest in the simple association between education and support for trade opennessA 2017 study found that individuals whose occupations are routine-task-intensive and who do jobs that are offshoring are more likely to favor protectionism.
Research suggests that attitudes towards free trade do not necessarily reflect individuals' self-interests.
Free-trade debates and associated matters involving the colonial administration of Ireland have periodically (such as in 1846 and 1906) caused ructions in the British Conservative (Tory) Party (Corn Laws issues in the 1820s to the 1840s, Irish Home Rule issues throughout the 19th and early-20th centuries).
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa (in office from 2007 to 2017) denounced the "sophistry of free trade" in an introduction he wrote for a 2006 book, The Hidden Face of Free Trade Accords, which was written in part by Correa's Energy Minister Alberto Acosta. Citing as his source the 2002 book Kicking Away the Ladder written by Ha-Joon Chang, Review. Correa identified the difference between an "American system" opposed to a "British System" of free trade. The Americans explicitly viewed the latter, he says, as "part of the British imperialist system". According to Correa, Chang showed that Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton (in office 1789–1795), rather than List, first presented a systematic argument defending industrial protectionism.
Under balanced trade, nations are required to provide a fairly even reciprocal trade pattern; they cannot run large or trade surpluses. Fair trade involves allowing trade but taking into account other interests, such as dirigisme, protecting labor rights, environmentalism, etc.
In 1846, the United Kingdom abolished the Corn Laws (which had restricted import of grain), in response to the famine in Ireland and other domestic pressures over food prices. It also reduced protectionism for manufactures, but only in the mid 19th century when its technological advantage was at its height. Tariffs on manufactured products had returned to 23% by 1950.
The United States maintained weighted average tariffs on manufactured products of approximately 40–50% up until the 1950s, augmented by the natural protectionism of high transportation costs in the 19th century. The 2016 presidential election marked the beginning of the trend of returning to protectionism in the United States, an ideology incorporated into Republican president Donald Trump's platform and largely maintained by his successor Joe Biden.
Belgian Empire also engaged in unequal exchange, most notoriously in the Congo Free State (CFS) under King Leopold II. In direct violation of his promises of free trade within the CFS under the terms of the Berlin Treaty, not only did the CFS become a commercial entity directly or indirectly trading within its dominion, but Leopold had also been slowly monopolizing a considerable amount of the ivory and rubber trade by imposing export duties on the resources traded by other merchants within the CFS.
This statement uses the concept of absolute advantage to present an argument in opposition to mercantilism, the dominant view surrounding trade at the time which held that a country should aim to export more than it imports and thus amass wealth.Pugel (2007), International Economics, p. 33 Instead, Smith argues, countries could gain from each producing exclusively the goods in which they are most suited to, trading between each other as required for the purposes of consumption. In this vein, it is not the value of exports relative to that of imports that is important, but the value of the goods produced by a nation. However, the concept of absolute advantage does not address a situation where a country has no advantage in the production of a particular good or type of good.Pugel (2007), International Economics, p. 34
This theoretical shortcoming was addressed by the theory of comparative advantage. Generally attributed to David Ricardo, who expanded on it in his 1817 book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation,Ricardo (1817), On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Chapter 7 "On Foreign Trade" it makes a case for free trade based not on absolute advantage in production of a good, but on the relative of production. A country should specialize in whatever good it can produce at the lowest cost, trading this good to buy other goods it requires for consumption. This allows for countries to benefit from trade even when they do not have an absolute advantage in any area of production. While their gains from trade might not be equal to those of a country more productive in all goods, they will still be better off economically from trade than they would be under a state of autarky.Bhagwati (2002), Free Trade Today, p. 1Pugel (2007), International Economics, pp. 35–38, 40
Exceptionally, Henry George's 1886 book Protection or Free Trade was read out loud in full into the Congressional Record by five Democratic congressmen.Weir, "A Fragile Alliance," 425–425Henry George, Protection or Free Trade: An Examination of the Tariff Question, with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor(New York: 1887). American economist Tyler Cowen wrote that Protection or Free Trade "remains perhaps the best-argued tract on free trade to this day".'' Although George is very critical towards protectionism, he discusses the subject in particular with respect to the interests of labor:
We all hear with interest and pleasure of improvements in transportation by water or land; we are all disposed to regard the opening of canals, the building of railways, the deepening of harbors, the improvement of steamships as beneficial. But if such things are beneficial, how can tariffs be beneficial? The effect of such things is to lessen the cost of transporting commodities; the effect of tariffs is to increase it. If the protective theory be true, every improvement that cheapens the carriage of goods between country and country is an injury to mankind unless tariffs be commensurately increased.
George considers the general free trade argument inadequate. He argues that the removal of protective tariffs alone is never sufficient to improve the situation of the working class, unless accompanied by a shift towards a "single tax" in the form of a land value tax.
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