Free trade no longer has good press.
In recent days, the most angry farmers have emptied the shelves of cold meats, oranges and honey of foreign origin in some supermarkets.
The French are not offended, and in Brussels, Emmanuel Macron is the herald of the fight against the Mercosur agreement.
History does not prove the angry peasants wrong: it demonstrated that Ricardo's theory of comparative advantages turned out to be a sweet dream.
For the economist, any exchange tends towards reciprocal equilibrium and is thus necessarily profitable for both partners.
In reality, far from linking
"all the nations of the civilized world together by the common knots of interest, by friendly relations, by making them a single large society",
trade is based on the relationships of strength.
Free trade benefits the most competitive industries, strengthening an economy's strengths and undermining its fragile sectors.
So, in France…
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