The economics every argument uses

Word	What it means
Free trade	Trade with few or no tariffs and restrictions between countries.
Protectionism	Using tariffs, quotas and subsidies to shield domestic producers.
Tariff	A tax on imported goods. Raises the price so domestic producers can compete; the cost falls on consumers.
Quota	A limit on how much of something may be imported.
Subsidy	Government money to a domestic producer, lowering its costs.
Trade bloc	A group of countries trading on preferential terms: the EU, USMCA, Mercosur.
Comparative advantage	Producing what you make relatively most efficiently and trading for the rest. The core argument for trade.
Balance of trade	Exports minus imports.
Foreign direct investment	Investment by a company or person in another country's economy.
Supply chain	The chain of suppliers and processes behind a finished product, often crossing many countries.

The idea. If Canada is relatively better at producing timber and another country relatively better at producing textiles, both end up with more of both by specialising and trading — even if Canada could produce both more efficiently in absolute terms. What matters is the opportunity cost, not the absolute skill.

What the argument does not claim. It says the total gains are positive. It says nothing about who gets them. That is where every serious objection lives, and conceding it makes your use of the argument stronger rather than weaker.

The protectionist reply. Tariffs protect domestic jobs and industries, and can shelter a new industry until it can compete. The costs are higher consumer prices and the risk of retaliation. State the trade-off in both directions or the answer is not analytical.

NAFTA, 1994, and USMCA from 2020. Trade with the United States grew enormously; some manufacturing moved; some sectors, notably supply-managed agriculture, were protected throughout. All three facts are available to either argument, which is why the example rewards care.

Resource dependence. A large share of Canadian exports are raw or lightly processed resources. That makes the economy sensitive to commodity prices — the structural pattern this course traces back to mercantilism.

Cultural protection. Canadian content rules are protectionism applied to culture rather than goods, and the argument for them is the same shape as the infant industry argument for tariffs. Pointing out that parallel is worth a mark.

Between countries. Extreme poverty has fallen sharply in rapidly trading economies. Whether trade caused it is contested, because industrial policy and state direction came with it.

Within countries. Gains from trade concentrate in some regions and sectors while losses concentrate in others. A national average can rise while a particular town's does not, which is why GDP per person is a poor answer to a question about fairness.

Along the supply chain. The share of a product's final price reaching the person who grew or assembled it is often very small. Fair trade certification is an attempt to change that, with contested results.

The habit worth building. Whenever a source says globalization helped or harmed, ask whom, measured how, and compared with what. Those three questions will improve almost any answer in this course.

• Using tariff, quota and subsidy interchangeably.
• Saying free trade helps everyone, or harms everyone. Say whom, and how you would know.
• Confusing the WTO, World Bank and IMF.
• Arguing about trade with no Canadian example when one is readily available.