Is World Trade Free Trade?

US-China Trade Conference from Salt Lake Chamber on Vimeo.

The folks at the Utah World Trade Center are beside themselves. They successfully hosted a governors' conference in concert with a US China Trade Conference connecting Chinese Governors with US Governors.

In this conference our glorious leaders negotiated business deals with glorious leaders from China. Four governors from Chinese provinces were given access to governors from throughout the United States.

This conference was really big news for the politically connected business leaders who have access to our ruling class.

Being a political outsider, I look at this top down structuring of the economy with dismay. The US Founders grew up in a world in which business was controlled by a corrupt distant monarchy. They created a new limited government.

Limiting the role of government in trade allowed businesses to freely trade among eachother.

This game where our governors negotiate business deals with Chinese governors is reconstructing the top-down business world that the US Founders rebelled against.

As the WTC Utah negotiates big trade deals that give world trade a competitive edge over small local business, our once free society diminishes.

Since people have a taste for the exotic, a truly free market will have a great deal of free trade.

However, world trade is not itself necessarily free trade. When governors from the US meet governors from China to discuss business deal, one ends up with a system of government controlled crony capitalism in which the people as a whole diminish in the shadows of government corruption.