‘Free Trade’ vs. Actual Free Trade . . .

[redcliffsw]

A key ingredient of the new mercantilist formula is "foreign aid," which is really just a subsidy for American exporters. When our client states get dollars in the form of foreign aid, these dollars are used to buy American products – and enrich the corporate interests who fund our free-spending politicians.

NATO is another example of how the system works to enrich the "donor class" at our expense. Whenever a new member is inducted into the alliance, they must "upgrade" their military hardware to "NATO standards" – and there is Lockheed-Martin, or some other weapons manufacturer, ready and willing to do the job. And American taxpayers foot the bill, because our protectorates pay Lockheed or whomever with the "foreign aid" we lavish on them with abandon. The internationalists tell us we're holding back global chaos by exercising "global leadership," but the vulgar reality is that the "security architecture" so beloved by our foreign policy "experts" is just a cash machine for powerful corporate interests.

We are truly living in Bizarro World, where up is down, right is wrong, and protectionist nonsense is "free trade." But then again, in an age like ours, when "Operation Iraqi Freedom" means destroying an entire country and delivering it into tyranny, and "Operation Enduring Freedom" translates into Operation Perpetual War, what else can we expect?
-Justin Raimondo

Read on:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/05/05/free-trade-vs-actual-free-trade/