Throughout history, Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, who visited China in 1972, gave the first sign of free trade between two countries; Obama, former president of America, emphasized that the United States strongly supports free trade, as Trump said. Nearly fifty years ago, when China and the United States established diplomatic relations, the volume of bilateral trade was almost zero. So the development of free trade between the two countries is obvious. Furthermore, many European countries have until now been staunch supporters of free trade, as they have benefited and continue to benefit from it. Whereas in recent years Trump has continuously increased tariffs and set quota restrictions, which interfere with the free flow of trade between nations. Furthermore, the UK is on track to leave the EU, which gives a bad signal to other EU countries. A question therefore needs to be raised. So far, has free trade done more good than harm? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayWith the above question, this thesis is mainly a study on the analysis of the rationality of free trade, concerning the current politics of trade war and Brexit. Literally, free trade is a policy in which governments do not restrict imports or exports in international markets. Buyers and sellers from different economies can trade voluntarily without a government applying tariffs (such as quotas), subsidies, or bans on goods and services (but not on capital or labor). Politically, a free trade policy can be the absence of any trade policy. In other words, a government may not need to take specific actions to promote free trade. This hands-off position is called “laissez-faire trade” or trade liberalization. But it's worth remembering that, in reality, governments with free trade agreements will never completely relinquish control over the taxation of imports and exports. “Free trade” does not exist at all because every country has important interests that could be devastated by absolute free trade. The interests they seek to preserve will be protected through various open or clandestine restrictions. According to Blinder (2019), there were two economists who gave clear reasons against mercantilism and opted for free trade over 200 years ago. Their names were Adam Smith and David Ricardo, whose arguments have since convinced virtually every economist, but the two economists reportedly had limited success with the general public at the time. Nowadays, there are already several large free trade areas globally such as NAFTA, EU, CAFTA, FTAA, etc. And China has also established strategic partnerships with many countries through free trade areas. From this trend it can therefore be seen that there must be some positive effects that countries find profitable. From the results of the current implementation of free trade, the benefits can be seen. Free trade gives rise to strong competition, which can improve the quality of business services, promoting them to improve management capacity. On the other hand, there is a good opportunity for industries with comparative advantages in a given country to specialize and effectively achieve economies of scale. Businesses pay more attention to reducing costs. Through trade, merchandise is also diversified, which gives consumers more alternatives, at a lower price. Furthermore, when service providers fully consider consumers' needs, they will always try toimprove the quality of service in all ways, offering consumers the greatest possible convenience. Apart from these, with higher demand from different countries, more job opportunities are created in exporting countries. Hur and Park stressed that the relationship between free trade and economic growth is undoubted. Two economists Grossman and Helpman also reported this, predicting that if a free trade system is modeled in a circumstance in which technology transfer occurs between the economies involved, production efficiency can be improved and free trade can therefore ultimately lead to economic growth among FTA signatory countries However, in practice, advantages always come with disadvantages, which can be seen as an axiom. The effects of FTAs have been found to be small on aggregate growth from the first year to ten years after their launch, but there is an ignorable non-trend for the gap between GDP per capita growth rates to increase within a bilateral free trade agreement. This denotes the uneven effects of the FTA across countries within an FTA. To a certain extent, free trade reduces the competitiveness of the products of importing countries, increasing the unemployment of workers in some sectors (with fewer comparative advantages). So it will also affect social construction and development. The uniqueness of industrial structures also poses a potential threat. Ju's studies showed that free trade could make the consumer worse off by spending more money on exported goods, providing an alternative channel for conflicting interests in free trade. A more general result was also demonstrated by Ju: as long as the share of consumption expenditure is greater than that of average expenditure in the ratio between national production and consumption, the free trade policy will lead to an increase in relative prices, which would damage a certain group of consumers. When it comes to unemployment, people's complaints become even more serious. It has made people feel more negative about international trade in the United States: A CBS poll in 2016 asked Americans, “Overall, would you say that U.S. trade with other countries creates more jobs for the United States, loses more jobs for the US., or does US trade with other countries have no effect on US jobs? About 15% of respondents gave what economists would call the right answer: Trade has little or no effect on the number of jobs. About 7% were unsure. Among others, 29% think trade creates jobs and 48% think it destroys them. And in a poll conducted that same year by Bloomberg, which juxtaposed the costs of import restrictions and protecting American jobs, trade restrictions won: 65% to 22%. It seems that Americans favor trade in the abstract but often not in practice. And support quickly evaporates if trade is linked to the globalization of jobs. Above all, in almost all cases, public beliefs about international trade differ greatly from the lessons of Economics 101. So, if the case for free trade is so compelling, why have economists failed to make the case? -Globalization is happening. Throughout the world, overall, many developed countries pursued protectionism to protect manufacturing, services, and agriculture. When they accumulated enough wealth to ensure they could benefit from it, they began to pursue free trade policies. But once they experienced less profit or felt a breachof national interests, they have abandoned the initial way in which they traded. To prove this point, for example (as is listed by Hughes as an example): Japan and South Korea, China's major Asian trading partners, joined the chorus of opposition after discovering the yen's competitiveness and won the contraction due to the drop in the dollar. Yuan anchored. Interestingly, when the Asian financial crisis occurred in the 1990s, the Chinese government made many positive comments for keeping the yuan pegged after the devaluation of its currency, so as to avoid an Asia-wide financial crisis. As a result, China lost exports in the short term, but maintained the stability of its currency in the long term. Stability is now still the determining factor in Beijing's monetary policy. Despite the influences of free trade itself, every country's decision is made by the people, about what to trade, who to trade with, and who to blame when things happen. That is, the root of the problems in free trade is surely not the question of whether countries should continue to do so, but the question of how they do so. As to why the US administration feels confident in strongly advocating the subsequent need to impose quotas, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez once stated that “free trade must be fair trade and we will work to ensure that producers and American workers compete on an equal footing." (Hughes, 2005) These words must be viewed with suspicion, because in several cases, as a developed country, the United States has used completely different ways to clarify its meaning regarding “free trade”. However, it is worth remembering that “fair trade” is an entirely different term from “free trade,” which is the practice of purchasing goods directly from producers in developing countries. It can therefore be seen that almost all countries in the world are trying to satisfy their interests, as will be indicated below. Every policy is reasonable when considered from the perspective of the affected party. Similarly, does Brexit represent a turn inward for Britain? Needless to say, the answer would be “no”. According to Qingjiang Kong, after Britain leaves the EU, developing partnerships through the FTA can help cushion the surge caused by Brexit. The UK needs to reduce its dependence on the EU market, and it will be better to try to have a substitute instead of the Single Common Market. There is still a need for time to see whether a free trade agreement between China and the UK could reduce trade costs or not. Whereas, for both countries, a free trade relationship could exist to maximally satisfy their needs. To summarize, just as they say, every coin has two sides; every sword is double-edged, which accords with the “usefulness” of free trade. If it is used correctly, each side of the game will win the game. It is definitely not a zero-sum game, but a cooperative and win-win game. Furthermore, free trade is a matter of each party's profits, not of right or wrong policy. It is not right to say that the trade war or Brexit are totally wrong, because parliament is making policies because it thinks it can benefit from it. Each country has policies for its own interests, which results in some multinational conflicts. According to Hughes, in an increasingly integrated global community, such clashes will become more frequent. To avoid an all-out trade war, the American Eagle and the Chinese Dragon must learn to respect their differences and seek common ground in resolving disputes., 72, 41-63.
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