Mad about Trade

If you look at where nearly all of the clothes in your closet were manufactured, as Dan Griswold does at the opening of Mad about Trade, the picture is clear. China, Canada, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Peru, Korea, Egypt, India, Mexico, Thailand, and more—a United Nations of pants, shirts, ties, and jackets. In every sense of the word, trade suits us exceedingly well.

Politicians and pundits can rage against free trade and globalization, but much of what they convey is myth. Griswold embraces the global marketplace and shows how free trade is the American family’s best friend. But, it’s not just about better and cheaper goods. As Griswold compellingly details, over the past three decades trade and an open global economy have created a more prosperous, democratic, and peaceful world.

Before you accept what you hear on cable TV and talk radio, consider the real story of America’s growing integration in the world economy presented in Mad about Trade. This book is a must‐​read for every American who wonders where we are all headed in this more open world of ours.

DANIEL GRISWOLD is director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. and a nationally recognized authority on international trade and immigration.

“In 10 well‐​organized chapters, international trade expert Griswold, director of the Cato Institute’s trade policy center, reaches out to low‐ and middle‐​class readers to make a persuasive case against U.S. protectionism by illustrating how have‐​nots are the most likely to benefit from the global marketplace in the form of lower prices, greater variety and better quality of goods. Bringing complex issues home, literally, Griswold opens his examination with a survey of his closet, containing items from Australia, Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, and Vietnam, but little from the U. S. How and why these faraway items wind up here is something few Main Street Americans think about, but Griswold explains the complicated mechanisms of world trade with brisk, easy‐​to‐​read prose.””
—Publishers Weekly

““There are few subjects so important and so misunderstood as the value of international trade to the American public. Dan Griswold does a masterful job explaining these issues in this highly readable and enjoyable book.””
—Frederick W. Smith, Chairman & CEO, FedEx

“Griswold has managed to compose a volume as accessible and persuasive as it is indispensable, as fresh and uplifting as it is firmly grounded in accumulated wisdom — a rare bird, indeed.”
—Shawn Macomber, The American Spectator