I'm going to step aside for a couple days (well, unless anything really important happens in the trade world, in which case I'll jump back in) so that we can have a good, old-fashioned free trade versus protectionism debate. On the free trade side will be Dan Griswold of the Cato Institute, who has a recent book out called "Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization". On the protectionism side will be Ian Fletcher, whose book "Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace it and Why" I reviewed here.
Each of them will make a short opening statement tomorrow (Friday). Next week they will come up with a response to the other's opening statement, and subsequently a response to the response.
Feel free to add to the discussion through the comments.
As a technical point, it will be me doing the actual posting, but I will make clear in the post that the arguments are coming not from me but from Griswold or Fletcher.
(For a future debate, I'd love to get Lori Wallach and Pascal Lamy, talking about the financial services issues discussed here, but I'm not holding my breath.)
ADDED:
I'll list all the posts here:
- Griswold opening statement
- Fletcher opening statement
- Fletcher reply
- Griswold reply
- Fletcher reply #2
- Griswold reply #2
- Fletcher reply #3
- Griswold reply #3
