'Mad About Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization,' by Daniel Griswold

Daniel Griswold: 'Mad About Trade'

10/22/2009 at 8:00 p.m.

Daniel Griswold challenges anyone who says free trade is a bad thing to do a closet survey: look at the tags on every item in your closet and see where the products are made. He says his closet holds 120 items, but only 10 of them are made in America. (Nine of them are neckties.) Griswold says we already vote on trade, with our dollars.

He wants to dispel myths floating around about trade. For example, we aren't losing our manufacturing base because of it. We still produce plenty. And he asks, "how can we expect hundreds of millions to pull themselves out of poverty if we don't let them participate in the global economy?" Griswold says global poverty was cut in half from the 1980s through 2006. Literacy rates are rising, and so is life expectancy.

Daniel Griswold is the author of "Mad About Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization." He's the director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. Griswold spoke in Seattle at a World Affairs Council event debating free trade and globalization's impact on developing countries. Griswold spoke at the Museum of History and Industry on October 13, 2009.