This TNR essay was really an organic outgrowth from multiple blog posts over the last month. Click here to read about the recent breakthrough in trade talks over the pharmaceuticals issue. I have penned a number of posts on the outsourcing issue as of late, each chock full of useful links. Click here, here, here, and here for more.

The sources for the official quotes are the National Security Strategy of the United States and this ABC News story on President Bush's Labor Day speech. The quote from Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales' Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists is from page 282 of their book. Oh, and for a look at how far the dollar has fallen against the euro in recent years, check out this graph.

Still confused on the merits of free trade for national security? Check out Brink Lindsey's thoughtful analysis, "The Trade Front: Combating Terrorism with Open Markets."

Still confused on the merits of free trade for the American economy? Beyond the Ragan and Zingales book, the best source is Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth. He's written two excellent and accessible books on the merits of free trade and open economic exchange for the United States. The first one, Against the Tide, examines the myriad intellectual arguments advanced in favor of protectionism and, to be blunt, why they all suck eggs. The more recent one, Free Trade Under Fire, directly rebuts the argument that free trade hurts the United States. As for the "crisis" in manufacturing, Arnold Kling has a Tech Central Station article debunking much of the hysteria (link via Ben Muse).

If, after reading these, you're looking for evidence rebutting the claim that free trade benefits the economy, the best source is probably Alan Tonelson's The Race to the Bottom. His theory is wrong, and his data slightly cooked, but it's a much better than, say, Pat Buchanan's tired rant.

Oh, and political scientists may notice that what I label "hypocritical liberalization" bears more than a passing resemblance to John Gerard Ruggie's notion of "embedded liberalism" to describe the economic order from 1945-1973. Here's a link to Ruggie's thoughts on whether embedded liberalism can survive in an era of economic globalization.