Unquestionably, the people hurt most by trade barriers are the citizens of countries where such policies exist.

Professor Dr. Donald J. Boudreaux on Free Trade and Prosperity:

“Free trade gives consumers the opportunity to buy goods and services from the best producers in the world. If shirts could be best produced domestically, then free trade would help to keep those producers profitably in business. Alternatively, if shirts could be best produced abroad, domestic consumers would only have ready access to those shirts through trade. Thus, free trade would encourage inefficient domestic shirt makers to use their talents for the maximum benefit of consumers by switching out of shirt-making and into other productive activities. By directing resources around the world into those tasks that each resource does best, free trade arranges the world’s resources so that they produce the greatest possible output while giving consumers maximum access to this output.”