by Patrick J. Buchanan – May 12, 1998

To any with a nodding acquaintance of history, this nation is taking an incredible gamble. When Spain, Holland, and Britain began to import what they once produced, and rely on finance and trade for their prosperity, not manufacturing and production, terminal decline set in. By 1917, free-trade Britain, blockaded, almost went under for lack of the food Britain used to grow and the arms and munitions Britain used to make. A reliance on trade had left the empire at the mercy of German submarines and dependent for its survival on protectionist Americans…