Obama administration on trade

Some thoughts on trade policy from Scott Lincicome. The current administration could be doing much better in this area than the mushy mercantilism they have adopted, and the "doubling exports" bit in the State of the Union Address was just silly, even by the standards of that event.

And one should always note in these contexts that trade policy is anti-poverty policy as pretty much all really poor people in the world live in other countries, many of whose products we tax or otherwise exclude in order to protect politically influential American producers. Compassion is a bit more compelling when you do not receive votes in return.