Is free trade fair trade?

If the U.S. doesn't like China's currency/trade policy, why does the U.S. continue to trade with them?

• Do Obama, Hillary, Geithner believe their verbal complaints can change Chinese currency policy? China has pegged the value of its Yuan to the value of the dollar, in order to keep the price of its goods on the U.S. market low, which in turn strengthens China's exports to the U.S. The price of U.S. goods in China stays high compared to the price of Chinese goods in China, while the price of Chinese goods in the US stays low compared with the price of U.S. goods in the U.S. And the underlying reason that China is able to get away with this is that Chinese workers are still relatively poor, work very long hours, have little or no union power, and have tragically-weak environmental/regulatory standards -- and so Chinese labor costs remain very low compared to American labor costs. U.S.-based corporations and the U.S. government whine "that's not fair" because it makes it harder for U.S. manufacturers to compete in the Chinese market. U.S.-based corporations and the U.S. government also whine about the Chinese government subsidizing certain sectors, such as solar panels [subsidizing solar sounds like a smart move to me with peak oil on the horizon]. But what China does with it's currency is, and should be, completely up to China, and what China does to subsize certain economic sectors in China is, and should be, completely up to China -- in exactly the same way that however the U.S. wants to define/regulate U.S. currency is, and should be, completely up to the U.S., and however the U.S. wants to subsidize or not-subsidize key sectors in the U.S. [such as renewable energy] is, and should be, completely up to the U.S. That's what freedom on a national-planning level means, governments are free to take care of their nations and citizen's economic needs, and set their economic/monetary/trade policies in their own best interests. Free trade means free trade. U.S.-based corporations and the U.S. government sound, and are, very hypocritical when they say "We want free trade, but you must let us set your currency policy for you." My questions are... * Weren't the corporations & U.S. government smart enough to see all this coming way back when they decided to go down the road of free trade? * If the corporations and the U.S. government cannot be a "big boy" about this, why did they even start down the path of free trade to begin with? * If the corporations and the U.S. government are that unhappy, why do they go ahead and continue with free trade? Why not develop very strong policies that focus on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.? Nobody is forcing us to trade with China (although Walmart provides a pretty slippery slope).

• Answer:

  because they need to.