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“If stability despite conflict is a lesson from past experience,” wrote economist and trade historian Douglas Irwin last year, “one can easily be led to conclude that the future will look much like the past and that the reciprocity period will continue for some time to come.”
But with President Trump’s trade war so far refusing to relent, is this vision of a free-trading future far too sanguine? Irwin himself joined me to discuss this question, as well as some American economic history, the most pervasive myths people believe about trade policy, and much more on the most recent episode of my podcast.
Douglas Irwin is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the author of “Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy.” You can download the episode by clicking the link above, and don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Tell your friends, leave a review.
Learn more:
- Should the US and China give up on a deal?
- Let’s not forget that protectionism is government central planning
- Ep. 105: What’s old is new again, international trade edition
- Experts back tough US stance on China
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I believe we also had balanced budgets during reconstruction when the primary means of taxation was via tariffs – that doesn’t seem so bad…