Proud Protectionism and the American Economy

10 June 2005

I have just read your editorial "Will it Take a Trarriff to Free the Yuan?" and only have one bone to pick with it.

The following statement is not necessary because it detracts for the editorial.

"While our efforts to pressure China to change have been called protectionist, nothing could be further from the truth. Pushing China to reform is the free trade position."

I feel that if you are called a protectionist so be it, we need to protect our jobs and markets. By imposing the tariff we are protecting ourselves form the Chineese cheats. I defend this position proudly.

I understand that it only causes problems for you. However, denying the protectionist stance will only make people call you that even more. Just say, "yes I wish to protect american business interests and jobs." If the desire to protect domestic jobs and business is protectionist than we should be proud protectionists.

These critics are for unfettered, unregulated free trade, which is bad for the economy. The appearance of the word mercantilist in some criticism of the editorial has led me to think of these people as Adam Smith-style free traders, who want completely unregulated economcs, which we cannot do in this country.

The result of not being proud protectionists at this time in small part would be abdicating your duty to help the American working- and middle-class people. Those that are like the people you grew up with when your parents ran the business. You had it right when you said "If we are not here to protect American jobs, than what are we here for."

Keep protecting anmerican jobs by not allowing the Chinese to play with currency values or flood our market with goods. Protective measures like tariffs and quotas will help our people keep jobs so they can pay their mortgages, rents, and bills. This is more important than any title any one may give you.

Oh, we are not allowed to protect our markets, but the Chinese sure do. They will allow us to make goods to export to the US but will not allow their people to buy the goods made right on their soil. This is not fair at all. They can be as prtectionist as they want, but we have to swear off protective measures entirely. I think not!

Please do not stop fighting for your S. 295. We need it to make our economy run stronger. We need fair trade not free trade.