[TheRealThing]

Free trade is not a conservative principle. Certain brands of conservative intellectuals with pronounced free market or libertarian leanings have pushed free trade. People such as Past Buchanan- for example, have never been free traders. Back in the fifties and sixties conservatives rarely, if ever mentioned free trade.
Free trade is a cancer- it is economic treason. I have been a life-long Republican, but I would never support a free market-free trade Republican, they are as evil and worthless as liberals.
Prominent amongst this sorry no good worthless lot are Hoot Gibson's pet dog Ted Cruz and his garbage buddies Bush and Rubio. Flush the lot of them down a toilet and this country will be better off.

Apparently, American History was not one of your better classes. Economic freedom is inseparable from personal liberty and both have been key parts of what was known as the American dream.

I think that people like you, who mistakenly believe that Donald Trump is a conservative, confuse free trade and economic freedom with trade agreements. They are not the same. One can be a strong supporter of free trade and opposed to trade agreements that weaken this country's position.

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are both anti-free trade, as is Donald Trump. Trump is a crony capitalist, who admits to buying political favors for his companies through campaign donations (mostly to liberal politicians). Trump has prospered in large part, not through any creative genius or hard work, but through programs like H1B visas and getting his products manufactured overseas. What do you think he got in return for all the money that he donated to politicians all these years?

I encourage you to learn more about economics before you accept Donald Trump and Pat Buchanan as your economic gurus. Watching a few Milton Friedman videos on Youtube on economic freedom would be a great start. I also encourage you to consider the alternative to economic freedom.

The leaders of Venezuela probably agree with your hatred of the free market. The people of Venezuela would probably welcome economic freedom and a roll or two of toilet paper with open arms.

ekyswvahsfan made a perfectly acceptable post. But as usual, the guy who believes himself to be the one suffering the insult, rides in to call eky's mental faculties into question. Please explain to us what in the world NAFTA or TPP has to do with personal liberty? Both of which place restrictions on the where and the how of which American manufacturers trade. We're not free to trade when EPA regulations choke the life out of any manufacturing concern located within US borders. That and a forecasted FY 2016 32.8 % capital gains tax just about killed it, or there would be a few jobs left to be had.

The NAFTA view is the globalist view, and as such governs US trade which affects every American who isn't rich. Furthermore, American industry has been all but eliminated from American soil and so too are American jobs which have been moved to Mexico. And if all that were not enough, the stake through the heart of American industry and commercial entities was certainly the passage, or make that the rammage, of ObamaCare. In fact, the only thing manufactured in the land as we speak are solar panels, wind mills and legislation which are funded by powerless Americans who are compelled to spend what ever might be left of their bank accounts to pay ever rising taxes, for those who don't work but who none the less share in the ever diminishing bounty. Please give us a break from your so-called encouragements, cause from where I sit you could use a little brush up on economics yourself.