Slipping away from the traditional nap, the ravishing Scarlett O’Hara descends down the stairs of the Hamilton Estate and overhears  men speaking. A man named Rhett Butler — that is, Clark Gable — is explaining his opinion on the Civil War.
The North, not having slaves, developed machinery to refine the production process. The South, on the other hand, is filled with cigar-puffing plantation owners and slaves. Not only is machinery more efficient and technologically advanced, it produces the kind of things needed for war.
Namely, not cotton and a refined taste for cigars.
The North specialized in factory production and, to a large extent, its naval fleet. This means, Mr. Butler explains, the North can not only trade for anything it needs, but it can block off Southern ports to prevent their use.
In other words, the South began the war with a huge disadvantage because of its choice in specialization and inability to trade during the war.
The North wins the war, and while there are a myriad of explanations for any major military victory, the benefit of cleverly crafted, “Gone with the Wind”-era economics didn’t hurt.
In modern America, we face schism less often — save when Rick Perry hints at a United State of Texas — and as far as resources go, we’re doing pretty well. Both the wide variety and immense size of our landscape yield a large basket of resources for the red, white and blue.
And here we are, enjoying the Land of the Free and all she has to offer — or all we can rape and pillage from the land — and foreign countries like China have to ruin it for the rest of us with absurdly low prices.
So, we fight like hell and buy American. Hell yeah.
Occasionally, other countries specialize in producing a certain good. Saudi oil, for example, is so cheap that even Texas can’t mess with it.
Specialization allows countries to spend infrastructure money and labor on developing the best ways to harness a particular resource, like steel or oil. Occasionally, it’s a flat-screen TV or an iPaid-too-much. It doesn’t really matter.
Foreign companies enter U.S. markets with lower prices — usually much lower — in a process sometimes called (crudely) “dumping.”
To fight back, we place trade barriers like tariffs on foreign goods to even up the game a bit.
But these trade barriers nearly always hurt much more than they help.
Let’s say Boeing is looking to buy some steel for its larger-than-life planes. They want to buy American because, well, “Hell yeah.