Free Trade vs. Protectionism: A Debate

I'm going to step aside for a couple days (well, unless anything really important happens in the trade world, in which case I'll jump back in) so that we can have a good, old-fashioned free trade versus protectionism debate.  On the free trade side will be Dan Griswold of the Cato Institute, who has a recent book out called "Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization".  On the protectionism side will be Ian Fletcher, whose book "Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace it and Why" I reviewed here.

Each of them will make a short opening statement tomorrow (Friday).  Next week they will come up with a response to the other's opening statement, and subsequently a response to the response.

Feel free to add to the discussion through the comments.

As a technical point, it will be me doing the actual posting, but I will make clear in the post that the arguments are coming not from me but from Griswold or Fletcher.

(For a future debate, I'd love to get Lori Wallach and Pascal Lamy, talking about the financial services issues discussed here, but I'm not holding my breath.)

ADDED:

I'll list all the posts here:

- Fletcher reply #2

- Griswold reply #2

- Fletcher reply #3

- Griswold reply #3