Free Trade: Most Important to Promote Growth

Job outsourcing works both ways: outsourcing by foreign companies has created more than 6.5 million jobs for American workers -- with the Honda automobile plant in Ohio and BMW factory in South Carolina being two prime examples.

In short, trade helps people while protectionism hurts them.

Imports give people a wider choice of goods, often at lower prices; protectionism helps local industries maintain higher prices at the expense of broad social and economic prosperity.

Milton Friedman was right when he said ''Free trade is the most important single way to promote growth,'' and the protectionists in the new Congress are wrong.

From today's Miami Herald, a commentary by Pete DuPont.