https://reason.com/2025/06/02/welcome-to-the-free-trade-club/

Katherine Mangu-Ward wrote on a great article on the weird effect partisan politics has on support for free trade. Here is an excerpt:

“If you just decided that tariffs are bad because Trump is for them and you're against Trump, or because your
401(k) is being battered by the inflationary effects of the trade war you once half-heartedly supported, welcome! Hop in the back seat. We're glad you're here. But the reason American trade policy has strayed so dangerously off course is because too many people became pro-trade only when it became politically expedient—or emotionally satisfying—to be so.

The real case for free trade is not "my enemies hate it" or "it's cheaper for me, personally" but "it makes the world richer, freer, and more peaceful." Tariffs are just taxes in sheep's clothing—dressed up as patriotism, but fundamentally designed to pick your pocket. They don't protect American workers; they protect politically favored industries from having to innovate, improve, or compete. Every time you pay more for a washing machine or a beer because of a tariff, you're experiencing crony capitalism with a red, white, and blue bow on top.

Free trade, by contrast, is capitalism at its most honest: voluntary exchange across borders that leaves both parties
better off. It doesn't require central planning, special favors, or a government agency to decide which industries are "strategic."

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Trump’s brand of populist authoritarianism isn’t surprising. After all, he was a registered Democrat for years before becoming a Republican to run for president. Democrats historically have been in favor of protectionism, central planning, and interfering in the marketplace when it benefits them politically.

It is hard not to get excited when people appear to favor economic freedom and embrace the market as the final arbiter of free exchange. But then I realize that the sentiment is driven less by a groundswell of support for economic freedom and more by a reactionary hatred for Donald Trump.