The United States and Europe have their trade problems with China, but pause for a moment to consider what is happening in the developing world.
On a recent visit to Lima, Peru, I bought myself a "made in Peru" shirt. The cotton material was excellent, as was the design and coloring -- all areas where Peru can excel. For someone who sees the textile industry as the first step to industrialization in a backward economy -- and anyone who sees the poverty and poverty-driven crime in Peru knows painfully how much that industrialization is needed -- that shirt was a beacon of hope.
But then they told me the shirt firm was about to close. It could not compete with the Chinese products pouring into Latin America under the free trade policies demanded by the World Trade Organization and its textbook economists. The shirtmaker's employees will soon join the ranks of Peru's many unemployed. Peru's excellent cotton fiber will now be sent to China for manufacture into shirts to be sent back to Peru.