alternatehistory.com

Virtually all economists recognize the benefits of Free Trade. It allows countries to export goods and services in which they have a relative advantage and import those in which they have a relative disadvantage. Tariffs are recognized as being a regressive tax which hurts consumers, particularly the poorest, while benefitting a few well connected businesses. It's also argued that free trade is good for World Peace by encouraging interdependence that makes in impossible to wage war (think about how Nazi Germany needed to build up their synthetic fuel industries through taxes on imported fuel in the run up to WW2). Naysayers claim that free trade destroys jobs thanks to foreign competition, this ignores the fact that labor and capital can be repurposed to do something else.

With all this in mind, how can we have Britain, France, and America (the 3 most powerful nations that could be considered remotely democratic in the 19th century) abolish their trade barriers before 1900?
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