Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Free Trade

March 20, 2018

Samuel Gregg: Why America needs a patriotic case for free trade

“While the economic arguments for free trade remain compelling, the political rationale requires a long-overdue overhaul,” says Samuel Gregg, Acton’s research director. Writing at Public Discourse, Gregg argues that America needs a patriotic case for free trade: So how does free trade bolster America’s standing in the world? Continue Reading...
March 13, 2018

Trade as fellowship: How tariffs hinder human relationship

As free traders continue to struggle with President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, it can be easy to focus only on the immediate or surface-level effects, whether we’re fretting over a spike in consumer prices, a slowing of economic growth, a decrease in dynamism at home, or a strain on foreign relations abroad. Continue Reading...
March 02, 2018

Milton Friedman debates President Trump on trade

Many of us thought it was empty rhetoric or that an advisor who had read an economics textbook would talk him out of it. But yesterday President Trump announced he’ll keep his campaign promise to start a trade war by slapping tariffs of 25 percent on foreign-made steel and 10 percent on aluminum. Continue Reading...
February 28, 2018

Black Panther has something important to offer

In this week’s Acton Commentary I examine the dynamics of marginalization and solidarity in the blockbuster phenomenon Black Panther. As so many commentators have suggested, there’s a lot to this film, and one of the important things it has to offer is a valuable perspective on the underlying unity amidst diversity in humanity. Continue Reading...
February 23, 2018

Isolationism and internationalism in Black Panther

I finally got around to seeing Black Panther last night, and my early reaction echoes so much of the overwhelmingly positive response to the film. As so many superhero tales do, Black Panther weaves together complex ideas within the often deceptively fantastical trappings of science fiction and fantasy. Continue Reading...
January 08, 2018

Woodrow Wilson’s radical vision for free trade

One hundred years ago today—on January 8, 1918—President Woodrow Wilson gave an address before Congress in which he outlined his goals for ending World War I. American forces had entered the war almost nine months earlier and Wilson wanted to let the world know exactly what he believed the Allies were fighting for. Continue Reading...
November 03, 2017

Edmund Burke, free marketer

It’s not just millennials and other young people who are souring on free markets (44 percent according to a new poll) — there’s also a growing disenchantment among some conservatives. Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg explains the conservative angst as rooted, among other things, in the threat that upheaval in market economies presents to the “permanency, order, tradition, and strong and rooted communities.” Continue Reading...
October 18, 2017

Protectionism is economic suicide

The most charitable assumption you can make about people who support tariffs and other forms of protectionism is that they are economically illiterate. But if they are able to demonstrate they understand the economics of protectionism and still support such policies, then we are justified in assuming they don’t care about harming their neighbor. Continue Reading...