Yes, their continued tariffs harm them…but they also harm us. Hence the international organization rationale.

Apparently the position of people like Ron Paul is that you don’t need a multi-national organization to eliminate tariffs. You can eliminate your own tariffs, and if neighboring countries won’t they are the ones that will suffer as goods and capital are attracted to lower tax regions. Nafta probably has resulted in benefits, but those could have been achieved without ceding national sovereignty to a multi-national organization that is much like the U.N.

What happens when Kyoto treaties and world wide union deals are imposed on us by these other countries? Apparently tax bills required by WTO regulations are the first ones rushed through Congress, while others languish in committee. These are the first steps towards global governments that wipe away our sovereignty entirely. It also results in the creation of world banks, which screw everyone. Today the Federal Reserve simply prints money and loans it to the U.S. government. I can protect my money by moving it in to foreign currencies. But with a world bank that option will be removed. You’ll be forced use their currency, which they devalue by printing it at their own whim. There will be fewer limits on the bankers abilities to manipulate currency.

So apparently the reasoning is why not just enact tariff policies that benefit commerce without creating new U.N. style organizations that are always a disaster anyway?

Be careful how much stock you put into the mises blog. They are not what you think. Most libertarians, especially mainstream ones like CATO and reason magazine types, strongly distance themselves from the Mises organization (as opposed to Ludwig Von Mises himself, a great person).

As far as NAFTA, this is one of the many reasons why I support it.

http://www.mises.org/econsense/ch88.asp

I know Ron Paul calls it “managed trade.” I’m starting to think that once again I was tricked into thinking support for Nafta is what a good, small government kind of guy would do.

Now, I know you think government is great at everything, which is why you think it’s a good idea to send our troops all over the world to fix all these problems. They’re so good at that, and it’s not like they create more problems than they solve. Big, big government. So maybe you would like Nafta.