Everyone Prospers With Free Trade Why protectionism will only make things worse

If you missed Stossel's program last evening, this article summarizes the segment on free trade.

Excerpt: Trade is win-win. Two people trade only because each values what he gets more than what he gives up. That's why in a store both customer and clerk say, "Thank you."

At the international level, trade is also win-win because it allows countries to specialize in what they do well and trade the extra for things they don't make as well. When free trade is unmolested, the world is richer and has more choices.

But I keep hearing about unfair trade. I'm told that trade allows American companies to exploit people in poor countries and makes Americans jobless.

Tom Palmer of the Atlas Economic Research Institute, one of my guests on my Fox Business News show tonight, says those are myths.

Do we exploit people in Third World countries?

"The evidence does not show that," Palmer said. "Multinational companies pay a wage premium. They pay more than local companies pay ... because they want to attract good workers. Look at the Shanghai factory of General Motors. They pay three times what Chinese-owned factories (pay)."

Yet House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that liberalizing trade with Central America would exploit workers.

"People want to work at those factories. They line up. They compete. Are they competing to get exploited? They're competing for higher-wage jobs. I think that those people know their interests better than Nancy Pelosi does."

Read full Stossel article here.