Protecting Our Economic Borders

We want to renew and emphasize our allegiance to the policy of Protection as the bulwark of American industrial independence and the foundation of American development and prosperity. It is only when misused or poorly implemented that protectionist policies become a detriment to the American people and many Conservative economist gloss over improper implementation of trade tariffs as being bad for the people and economy. This tried and true American policy taxes foreign products and encourages home industry; it puts the burden of revenue on foreign goods; it secures the American market for the American producer; it upholds the American standard of wages for the American workingman; it puts the factory by the side of the farm, and makes the American farmer and manufacturer less dependent on foreign demand and prices; it diffuses general thrift and finds the strength of all on the strength of each individual. In its reasonable application it is just, fair and impartial, equally opposed to foreign control and to a domestic monopoly, to sectional discrimination and individual favoritism.

We denounce the present Free Trade policy as sectional, injurious to the public credit and destructive to business enterprise. We will demand a reciprocal tariff on all foreign imports based upon the value of any trade imbalances, as this will not only furnish revenue for the necessary expenses of import regulation by the Government, but will protect American labor from degradation to the wage level of other lesser lands and third world countries. We are not pledged to any particular schedules. The question of rates is a practical question, to be governed by the conditions of the time and of production; the ruling and uncompromising principle is the protection and development of American labor and industry. Our country and countrymen demand a just foreign trade policy.