T. Norman Van Cott has penned an article on trade protectionism. The whole is well worth reading, but there is one particular paradox that I cannot help but love. The goal of protectionism is to prevent foreign goods, be they “too cheap” like steel or “too expensive” like oil, from coming into the country, ostensibly to protect our interests and make us richer. In effect, we throttle the flow of goods into the country in the name of prosperity, and try to restrict our trade and production to that which can be done within our own borders.

Yet the blockade is a very old trick in war. Lincoln blockaded Confederate ports, the Royal Navy cut Hohenzollern Germany off from her foreign trading partners, the German U-boat fleet tried to cut Britain off from her colonies and the USA, and the UN shut off trade with Iraq to punish her for transgressions against international peace. Even the ancient Athenians would use their navy to cut off enemy city-states from external trade and commerce.

Lincoln, George V, Hitler, Boutros-Ghali and Annan all tried to shut off foreign trade with their enemies so that they would be impoverished and more likely to acquiesce to their demands. Why, in peacetime, do Bush, Martin, Blair, Schroeder and others believe that effectively blockading their own countries would not impoverish them? If protectionism is correct, surely the actions of the U-boat fleet, the Yankee navy et al would have made their targets richer and better-off? Why the left-wing hue-and-cry about how sanctions have impoverished the Iraqi people, when they lobby for sanctions against their own country?