Free trade is often opposed by domestic industries that would have their profits and market share reduced by lower prices for imported goods.[13][14] For example, if United States tariffs on imported sugar were reduced, US sugar producers would receive lower prices and profits, while US sugar consumers would spend less for the same amount of sugar because of those same lower prices. Economics says that consumers would necessarily gain more than producers would lose.[15][16] Since each of those few domestic sugar producers would lose a lot as an individual while each of a much greater number of consumers would gain only a little, domestic producers are more likely to mobilize against the lifting of tariffs.[14] More generally, producers often favor domestic subsidies and tariffs on imports in their home countries, while objecting to subsidies and tariffs in their export markets.
Some socialists oppose free trade as a consequence of their exploitation theory and opposition to employment ("wage slavery"). For example, Karl Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto, "The bourgeoisie... has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."
Others oppose government managed trade, erroneously calling it free trade. Thus, "free trade" is opposed by many anti-globalization groups, based on their assertion that so-called Free Trade agreements generally do not increase the economic freedom of the poor, and frequently make them poorer. See perfect competition for the basis for this view of how Free Trade should work. For example, it is argued [17] that letting subsidized corn from the US into Mexico freely under NAFTA at prices well below production cost (dumping) is ruinous to Mexican farmers. Of course, such subsidies violate free trade, so this argument might better be seen as against subsides and for free trade, properly understood.
Some free trade economists have recently begun to express their own doubts concerning the concept and practice of free trade. Alan S. Blinder, for example, a professor of economics at Princeton University, and former Federal Reserve Board vice chairman and advisor to Democratic presidential candidates, had previously argued, along with most economists, that free trade enriches the U.S. and its trading partners. However, he now says new communication technology will put 30-40 million American jobs at risk in 10-20 years. Blinder has not completely rejected free trade or Ricardo's ideas about comparative advantage, but he advocates greater protection for displaced workers and an improved education system. Blinder opposed steel, aluminum and farming export subsidies and protection, and pushed for the passage of NAFTA, though he did not agree that it would create jobs in the US. Trade changes types of jobs, not the number, he said. Technology allowed Indians in call centers to do the work of Americans at lower wages. "Tens of millions of additional American workers will start to experience an element of job insecurity that has heretofore been reserved for manufacturing workers," said Blinder. Democrats and Republicans are becoming skeptical. The debate is, "Should government encourage forces of globalization or try to restrain them?" Latin America performed poorly since tariff cuts in 1980s and 1990s, compared to protectionist China and Southeast Asia. Paul Samuelson, in his 2004 essay[18], condemned "economists' over-simple complacencies about globalization" and said that workers don't always win. Lawrence Summers, advocate for trade expansion as Clinton Treasury Secretary, said retraining is "pretty thin gruel" to the middle class. Ralph Gomory, former IBM chief scientist, says the rise of China and India could make the U.S. lose important industries. Harvard economist Dani Rodrik says trade barriers should help poor nations build domestic industries and give rich nations time to retrain workers. But Jagdish N. Bhagwati says jobs will grow in medicine, law and accounting. Blinder has created a list of "highly offshorable" jobs that could be lost in the next 20 years, which claims that 1,815,340 bookkeeping, accounting and auditing jobs could be lost. [19]
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa has denounced the "sophistry of free trade", in an introduction he wrote for a book titled The Hidden Face of Free Trade Accords. One of the authors of that book is today Correa's Energy Minister, Alberto Acosta. Citing as his source the book, Kicking Away the Ladder, [2] written by a Korean economist based at Cambridge University, Ha-Joon Chang, Correa identified the difference between an "American system" opposed to "a British System" of free trade. The latter, he says, was explicitly viewed by the Americans as "part of the British imperialist system." Correa wrote that Chang showed that it was Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, and not Friedrich List who was the first to present a systematic argument defending industrial protectionism. (Correa includes List's National System of Political Economy in his bibliographic references.)
Following alternatives for free trade are proposed: balanced trade, fair trade, protectionism and Tobin tax.
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