foreign labor makescompetition unfair. Most products (such as foreign-made shoes) are produced in LDCs(Less Developed Countries) where workers are paid very low and foreign industries areable to make more profit due to the cheap labor. Most of this unfair competition isperpetuated by transnational corporations (TNCs). These corporations originate indeveloped countries and migrate to the Third World in search of policy flexibility that theycan not find in a country such as the United States. TNCs seek cheap labor , low taxes,and few regulations. They do little for local development and they even drain theeconomy of the underdeveloped country, lowering their GDP. Most TNCs can be seen asleeches that reap all the benefits in a global community but contribute nothing back. Afact that people tend to forget is that wages in a competitive industry reflects productivity. Workers in the United States earn higher wages because they are more productive. USworkers are better trained and each worker has more capital per worker. Other factors infavor of protectionism are the safeguarding of national security, the discouraging ofdependency, the safeguarding of infant industry, and the provision for protection duringtemporary currency overvaluations. If protectionism policies were to be practiced, thenfree trade organizations such as the WTO would be obsolete. These organizations place aback seat to US interests and sovereignty and threaten to erode its consumer-protectionand environmental regulations.Critic, Gus Tyler, agrees with protectionist measures in his book entitled Dissent. Tyler presents the idea that free trade is a myth. In the past, nations met in rounds afterrounds to announce reductions of trade barriers. They then went home to make non-tariffbarriers, and created subsidies to encourage exports. They negotiated VERs (VoluntaryExport Restraints) or quotas, and they indulged in the most deceptive form ofprotectionism-the de...
