Trade and our preferences

Too-simple arguments are not helping

Author

Janet Bufton
March 24, 2025

I’ve got two new pieces up at Econlib sites.

The first uses a famous Supreme Court of Canada case about interprovincial trade, colloquially known as the “free the beer” case, to talk about the unavoidable and more political barriers to getting to free trade that aren’t tariffs.

Free the Beer, Free the Trade - Econlib

CBC Radio has a great report on what we can learn from the Supreme Court of Canada case R. v. Comeau, popularly known up here as the “Free the Beer” case.  In 2012, Gerard Comeau loaded his car with beer (and whiskey and liquor) in Quebec and headed […]

www.econlib.org/free-the-beer-free-the-trade

Tariffs are (uncharacteristically!) the most significant issue facing Canadian trade today. But the United States seems committed to tariffs for their own sake and standard arguments for free trade seem unlikely to move them. Non-tariff barriers are likely to be the most relevant sticking point for diversifying Canadian trade to mitigate the damage from a hostile U.S. and to put ourselves in a better long-term position.

Meanwhile, at AdamSmithWorks, I write a bit about two Great Antidote Podcast episodes:

Podcast Extra: Erik Matson on Adam Smith, David Hume, and the New Paternalists

Complex preferences, the difficulty of understanding tacit knowledge (even with clear prices!), and Enlightenment lessons come together in Janet Bufton's Extra on Juliette Sellgren and Erik Matson's Great Antidote podcast. 

www.adamsmithworks.org/podcasts/great-antidote-podcast-matson-smith-hume-paternalists-may-2024-extra

They’ve gotta pick one episode for the title, but this is about two episodes that you can listen to together. The first is a conversation about “new paternalism” and libertarian paternalism. The second is about price controls.

Listening to them together, I was struck with how slippery our ideas of preferences are and how thinking about prices (and a restricted concern about prices that focuses on price controls) can muddy the water.

I came back from March break pretty sick—that nasty non-Covid cough that’s going around—but immune system willing I’m hoping to keep up the regular content.

Moar:

Justin Ling has had some great content inspired by Trump’s trade war. First, Beggar Thy Neighbor, Beggar Thyself tackles a misunderstood McKinley, Mercantilism, and Peter Navarro. Next, There Is No Land Uninhabitable, Nor Sea Innavigable how the Empire Marketing Board responded to the trade war in the 1920s less with marketing and more with research about technical trade barriers, and how that last global trade war might help us think about this one.

Liberal Currents also had a great week last week following my defence of Canadian sovereignty, No is Enough. Check them out tout de suite—though there’s always more good stuff coming.