A friend of mine recently sent me an email saying something about how he went to a certain big box hardware store and found that many of the products were made in China, Mexico, India, Pakistan and other countries, and then went to another hardware store and found more North American products there. There were further mentions of foreign products in various stores, and he then said that he was no longer buying foreign products and would now exclusively buy locally made products, wherever possible. The email was one of these chain letter type things meant to be sent to a large group of people and it made many appeals to buying local and further embracing the general concept of protectionism. I should further add that this friend of mine lives in a highly unionised town in Ontario where protectionism is very popular in these difficult economic times.

While I do often buy local, I am also happy to support foreign countries which have lower standards of living. I did feel that the gist of his email was overly simplistic and that it bordered on xenophobia. And so I felt the need to write back to him. Below is what I wrote back to my friend.

Dear _______;

This is an interesting idea. But let’s think through the implications for a minute. Are Chinese, Mexican or Indian kids any less deserving than our own? Any less human? Trading spreads the wealth. We are relatively wealthy in the west and many of the countries you mentioned are relatively poor. Tempting though protectionism can be in tough times, it only heightens international divisions. We live well in this country and it seems to me that many of these countries you might discriminate against are much poorer. Should we make them starve? Freeze?

If you were having a party, would you put up a sign outside saying Chinese, Mexicans, Eastern Europeans, Pakistanis, Indians and other Non Canadians are not welcome? I doubt it. And if you did, how would that square with your so-called Christian values?? Not so well I imagine.

Canada is an exporting nation. We rely on open markets to sell our goods around the world. If we close our markets to foreign goods, what is that likely to do to Canadian access to these foreign markets? You can imagine that doors would begin to close very rapidly.

Also we certainly like our cheap prices as consumers. If you liked that new flat screen TV you might have bought from some foreign country for $ 1000, would you like it as much at $ 2000 if it was Canadian made?

These are only a few implications of retreating to our tiny Canadian market and deciding only to deal “with our own kind”.

It is tempting in the short run but does little to foster good international relations. Trade wars are ugly. And trade wars are the natural out come of protectionism.

For these and many other reasons, I am a total non believer in protectionism. When we all retreat to our tiny little tribes, we just make the world a much smaller place.

Do you still think Protectionism is a great idea?