There were a variety of points that Pat Buchanan made in my latest reading of The Great Betrayal: How American Sovereignty and Social Justice Are Being Sacrificed to the Gods of the Global Economy:
----Buchanan
argues that Japan's economic miracle in the 1960's was due to its
protectionist policies, as Japan allowed for domestic development by
shielding it from foreign competition. That may be so, but, the
way Buchanan tells it, Japan still had some interaction with other
countries prior to the economic miracle in the 1960's. Japan imported
from the U.S. "mineral fuels and animal and vegetable products", while
also exporting a lot (page 31). Could that have set the stage for the
economic miracle, by providing Japan with wealth and capital?
----Buchanan
believes that there was a negative aftermath to President John F.
Kennedy's free-trade policies: a reduction in "America's share of world
industrial exports", even as Europe's share was rising; trade deficits;
and a decline in American industries, such as radio- and
TV-manufacturing, antifriction-bearings, machine-tools, and American
automobiles. Buchanan narrates that a number of Republicans supported
Kennedy's free-trade policies (except for some stalwarts, like Barry
Goldwater), and yet there were many politicians who later wanted a quota
system to offset their negative consequences. But President Lyndon
Johnson said no.
----In the same way that Edward Gresser in Freedom from Want
sought to argue that free trade should be embraced by liberals because
it's a liberal value, conservative Pat Buchanan seeks to demonstrate
that protectionism is something that has been supported by prominent
conservatives. Buchanan acknowledges that President Ronald Reagan
pursued free-trade policies----with the shoe industry, for
example----and the result of that was a decline in the American shoe
industry. But Buchanan notes that Reagan was concerned about the impact
of free trade on American workers prior to his conversion to free
trade, and that Reagan as President pursued protectionist policies that
protected Harley-Davidson and imposed quotas on the import of Japanese
cars, resulting in a resurgence of the American automobile industry.
----Like Gresser, Buchanan looks at the trade policies of America's founding fathers. Buchanan
notes that America in her early days could have followed the free trade
Gospel by sticking with what she was good at----growing tobacco and
other products----while importing things that other countries were good
at----products from manufacturing. Instead, she built her own
manufacturing base, one reason being that she wanted for
America to be self-sufficient in terms of developing her own military
supplies. And she did not hesitate to use tariffs. When
British ships were "dumping goods in U.S. ports to kill the industries
begun during the War of 1812...Madison imposed a protective tariff"
(page 52).
----Buchanan argues that "free trade" policies
in their current form are neither consistent with the free market, nor
are they fair. In the aftermath of Kennedy's policies, Europe and Japan
had tariffs that inhibited U.S. exports from making the same gains that
they themselves were making. There are countries in which the
government actually gives their businesses an advantage by subsidizing
them, which is not a free market. And there are countries that
devalue their own currency, which results in a trade deficit by making
our goods in their countries more expensive, even as their goods in our
countries somehow become cheaper. (But I don't know how their
devaluation of their currency makes their goods cheaper in our
countries.)