Don Boudreaux responds to a recent Wall Street Journal article by a pair of politicians (Senators Baucus and Kerry) that gave a weak argument for free trade. He makes a much better case.

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
1211 6th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Dear Editor:

Two cheers for Senators Max Baucus and John Kerry for supporting freer trade 
with Colombia ("The Colombia Trade Deal: A Different Kind of Jobs Bill," April 
4).  A third cheer would be in order had not the senators relied upon a wholly 
mistaken reason to justify this particular move toward freer trade.

In their essay, U.S. imports and American consumers are mentioned a total of 
zero times, while U.S. exports and American producers (such as farmers, firms, 
and workers) are mentioned 23 times.

While pandering to economic ignorance often wins votes, it's distressing to see 
such pandering - even for a good cause - in your pages.  Trade's benefits are 
measured in imports; the more the better.  Exports are the costs of getting 
these benefits.  In a truly ideal world - one quite the opposite of the 
ostensible ideal of Messrs. Baucus and Kerry - we'd continually receive cargo 
ship after cargo ship of automobiles, MP3 players, foodstuffs, and countless 
other valuable imports in exchange for our export of a single toothpick.  Alas, 
it is in fact unfortunate that foreigners are so prehensile that they demand 
lots more than one toothpick in exchange for the stuff they ship to us.

The senators' argument for freer trade in this particular case undermines the 
larger effort to persuade the public that free trade is to everyone's long-term 
advantage - an advantage that is measured by increases in what we're able to 
consume and not by increases in what we must sacrifice.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University