A Free Trader Responds to a Free Trader About Free Trade
An exchange about currencies, investment and the exceptions made for China.
Issues
Trade, tariffs and John Tamny’s argument for openness
Trade is a way for people to specialize and produce for one another. Tamny follows that premise into disagreements with protectionists and with some fellow advocates of free trade.
What changes when work crosses a border?
Tamny begins with work divided among people. When individuals specialize, they can accomplish more together than they could while trying to meet every need alone. His trade writing asks why that benefit should disappear when the person doing part of the work lives in another country.
His essay on the “China shock” makes the argument through comparisons among American cities and the movement away from manufacturing. He interprets China’s growing participation in production as an opportunity for the United States to move toward new forms of work.
Read: There Was No “China Shock,” There Was a Big China Boom
The disagreement over places and jobs
The essay engages a serious objection: some communities lost manufacturing employment and struggled afterward. Tamny disputes the causal account that attributes those communities’ difficulties to Chinese production. He directs attention instead to the movement of ambitious people and the ability of a place to attract them.
That is his interpretation of the evidence and a point on which the writers he discusses disagree. The original essay identifies that disagreement rather than treating changes in employment as something nobody needs to explain. Readers should examine the reasoning and the sources it names.
Read: There Was No “China Shock,” There Was a Big China Boom
Why he challenges exceptions for China
In an exchange with Dave Hebert, Tamny distinguishes agreement about free trade from disagreement about the language used to defend it. He challenges arguments about currency manipulation, intellectual property and trade deficits that he thinks concede too much to protectionists.
In particular, he does not describe foreign investment as making up for a damaging trade deficit. He regards the deficit framing itself as misleading. He also argues for economic openness even when considering the premise that China presents a strategic threat. These are more specific positions than a general endorsement of lower tariffs.
Read: A Free Trader Responds to a Free Trader About Free Trade
Follow the argument beyond a headline
A tariff dispute can involve several different questions: the cost of obtaining goods, the organization of production, the movement of investment and the meaning of a currency’s value. Tamny treats these as connected but does not use “inflation” as a synonym for every increase in cost. His monetary essays explain that distinction.
Begin with the exchange on free trade for the precise points of disagreement, then read the China essay for his argument about specialization and economic change. The archive below includes other Parkview writers, whose views remain their own.
Reading guide by The Parkview Institute. Reviewed September 4, 2026. The views described here are John Tamny’s; the linked essays contain his full arguments.
Start with these essays
There Was No “China Shock,” There Was a Big China Boom
Tamny’s response to an argument about trade and manufacturing communities.
With Venezuela's Oil, Trump Is Doing Exactly As Conservatives Desire
A contemporary application of his criticism of economic self-sufficiency.
Recent essays on trade and tariffs
Writing by Parkview contributors. Each author’s views are their own.
