Real issue is free trade

Artigo de Henrik Rasmussen no Washington Times.

Free trade is the most efficient wealth creator available to mankind. During the last six decades average tariffs on manufactured goods were reduced from 40 to 4 percent. In the same period, poverty fell from 50 percent of world's population in 1950 to less than 20 percent. Foreign companies account for 5.4 million jobs in the United States, and many foreign countries have drastically improved their living standards by opening their economies to world-class U.S. companies.

Yet the task is unfinished. More than a billion people still live in poverty, concentrated in countries with limited economic freedom and high trade barriers. These people depend on strong nations such as the United States to put pressure on their governments to open markets.

(...)

The campaign against Dubai Ports World during the last weeks does not bode well for the millions around the world who depend on strong champions of free trade for their livelihoods. In the long run, a setback for the U.S. free trade agenda will increase the risk of international instability and terrorism. As the French economist Frederic Bastiat once put it, "When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will."

[via Globalization Institute]