Dubai could have a silver lining. The government didn’t think twice about the security of six major seaports in the United States. It thought that what was good for the transnationals, for globalization, was good for the country. People now realize that corporate America is blind to the nation’s security and its economy. Only government can protect our manufacturers, our economic strength. The bubble of “free trade,” and of “protectionism,” has popped. The charades of the “trade war” and of “globalization” are over. As Henry Clay observed in 1832, “The call for free trade is as unavailing as the cry of a spoiled child, in its nurse’s arms… It never has existed; it never will exist.”

We started a “trade war” when Alexander Hamilton rebuffed Britain’s proposal that the freed colony should trade what it produced best while Britain would trade what it produced best — David Ricardo’s “Doctrine of Comparative Advantage.” In his famous “Report on Manufacturers,” Hamilton told the Brits to bug off: We are not going to remain your colony, trading our rice, cotton, indigo for your finished goods. We will become a nation-state by building our own manufacture. The first bill to pass Congress on July 4, 1789, was for the seal of the United States. The second bill was a 50-percent tariff on numerous articles. The United States was built on managed trade or protectionism. Abraham Lincoln managed trade for steel for the intercontinental railroad; Franklin Roosevelt managed trade for agriculture; Dwight Eisenhower for oil; John Kennedy for textiles; Ronald Reagan for semiconductors.

By the time of Teddy Roosevelt, Edwin Morris in “Theodore Rex” writes: “This first year of the new century found her (U.S.) worth $25 billion more than her nearest rival, Great Britain, with a gross national product more than twice that of Germany and Russia. The United States was already so rich in goods and services that she was more self-sustaining than any industrial power … More than half the world’s cotton, corn, copper, and oil flowed from the American cornucopia, and at least one third of all steel, iron, silver, and gold…the excellence of her manufactured products guaranteed her dominance of world markets.” This industrial might — personified by Rosie the Riveter — was a principal force for victory in World War II. At the end of the war, the United States had the world’s only manufacture and wisely launched the Marshall Plan to develop manufacture in Europe and the Pacific Rim. We called for “free trade” in an effort to open markets. But Japan and South Korea’s markets remained closed. Even our winking at dumping violations and transshipments failed to budge Japan and South Korea. Now China follows suit.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/28/opinion/main1446887.shtml