Does Restricting Trade Improve National Security?

International commerce has created an interconnected world. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman believed that unfettered free trade is always in people's best interests, as they have the freedom to buy and sell whatever they want, with whomever they want. Others argue that trade should be restricted and that we ought to prioritize domestic production and consumption. Between these two extremes lie most of today's trade policy: managed trade, in which the government intervenes to affect where goods and services are produced. Conversations around when trade should be restricted are often concerned with how trade in goods and services affect our national security. But are the measures taken to restrict international trade actually improving our national security? Joining Project Sphere’s Sallie James to consider this question are Arthur Herman, senior fellow at the Husdson Institute, Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute, and Josh Meltzer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.