Free Trade Area

Categories: Econ, Trading

Down on the rough end of the playground, some kids from our class have started charging a dollar to anyone who wants to trade Pokémon cards. And not only would we have to pay a dollar, but we also have to let one person copy our homework and promise to buy at least one Shopkin from Joey’s little sister...and everyone knows Shopkins are so totally lame.

We aren’t about to agree to such draconian terms just to trade our Pokémons, so we decide to form our own playground posse. Anyone who wants to join our club can, as long as they agree to play by our rules: no one-sided trade tariffs, no unfair claims on what others produce, and, for the love of all that is good and kind, no Shopkins.

We call our club PAFTA—Pokémon Aficionados Free Trade Agreement—and all members are instantly a part of our free trade area.

A free trade area is basically the area occupied by two or more entities who engage in mutual, consensual free trade. When NAFTA became a thing (think: PAFTA but replace “Pokemon Aficionados” with “North American”), a free trade area that included the United States, Canada, and Mexico was created. There are free trade areas all over the world, and they don’t necessarily have to occupy contiguous physical space. Like CAFTA-DR (think PAFTA, but replace “Pokémon Aficionados” with Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the United States).

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Finance: What is Free Trade?12 Views

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Finance a la shmoop what is free-trade? alright people think tax-less trade

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frictionless trade trade with gallons of wd-40 sloshing around it no duties no [Person spraying WD-40 on trade]

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fees no hassles from the man well we want to sell iPhones into China where

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there ain't no free trade sorry China and just keeping it real

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China treats its own companies as if it's you know them against the world and [China fighting the world in a boxing ring]

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China backs its own companies aggressively like against everyone else

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including us like you can't get Gmail and a bunch of other American websites

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in China without a special VPN or virtual private network to kind of go

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around their system and yeah that's government free trade in China there

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isn't so when American companies want to sell stuff into China a big fat tax in

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one form or another is levied on top of them like a pair of shoes that should

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sell for 80 bucks gets a forty dollar tax laid on top of it so that the

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distributors have to sell it for a hundred twenty bucks to keep the same

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margin they have everywhere else do some people still pay up for those hundred [People walking]

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twenty dollar shoes you know their quality American goods well you bet but

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in a bake-off of arguably the same well almost identical product where one costs [Two pairs of shoes with different price tags]

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50% more well it ends up being tough to compete in that environment right so

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that's not free trade so what is free trade? well basically it's a world where

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there are no taxes no levies no special fees no needs for local business

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incorporation no hidden legal fees no corruption that just kind of you know

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happens along the way with product falling off the truck and ending up in [Truck drives by and box falls off]

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someone's hands and then getting sold on eBay yeah that happens all the time so

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free trade actually deals with the regulation of tariffs ie taxes and

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duties on imports and exports. Well, in real life there's no perfectly free

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trade, trade is essentially governed by agreements among nations and the most

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talked about free trade agreement is NAFTA or the north american free trade

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agreement which basically stated that the countries comprising

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North America ie Canada Mexico and the U.S would trade freely among themselves

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with little to no pain in the butt friction tariffs were eliminated [Person sprays WD-40 on north american tariffs]

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progressively with the goal of removing all friction and trading among these

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"partners" financial commercial utopia that's what we saw it

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and yeah it does not exist in the U.S either by the way we are free ish the

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same way marriage is free-ish generally the arguments supporting free trade

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revolve around the following first the markets prevail if people want a good [List of arguments for free trade appears]

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they can buy at a fair price second if they buy in this free trade umbrella

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both nations benefit in theory by having better economic growth and third free

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trade is relatively easy to regulate because they're simply not much

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government needs to do government can just sit and watch so then you remove

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the cost of supporting a whole bunch of bureaucrats who add almost no value to

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the economy and often more times than not to add a whole bunch of corruption [Man puts dollar bill over his eyes]

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to the process and then fourth yeah don't forget four, when active trade

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happens there's essentially a learning that goes on in the form of technology

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transfer product innovation and optimization and other forms of

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production expertise that you know get shared among countries and that's good

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right? so those are the good the good things

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about free trade what about the bad? well first the free trade makes the theft of [List of arguments against free trade appear]

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intellectual property really easy note that the movie Deadpool made

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literally no money from China after making like half a billion dollars in

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the U.S yet it was the number one download in China yeah how does that

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work well second jobs get out sourced when trade is truly free of course

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manufacturers will lean toward companies with cheaper labor and few human rights

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to assemble that you know Ford f-150 with the extra shiny bumper and what [Ford F-150 appears]

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makes it shiny yeah arsenic etching and stuff that kills

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people down the river but we don't worry about them right all right next

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third domestic industries in free trade aren't protected if a foreign country

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wants to dump their semiconductors in America at a third of the going market

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price well if the country behind them is bankrolling that aggressive

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act looking at you Taiwan well there's usually little the American company on

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its own can do to protect itself from great economic harm.. all right moving on

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Four; working conditions aren't monitored so conditions are ripe for human abuses

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in all shapes and forms from minimum wage issues to health violations [Smoke bellowing from factory plant]

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basically with no recourse and hey check out this picture of all the 40 plus year

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olds working in the Indian fireworks factory bringing that snappy amazing

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fourth of July production to your backyard you know they're all dead that [Man stood by graveyard]

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was the point they're all right fifth in a free trade environment government

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simply collect less from taxes and this is a problem because well governments

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have lots of things they should be spending our tax dollars on right?

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