Free trade means free production. Now fully to free production it is necessary not only to remove all taxes on production, but also to remove all other restrictions on production. True free trade, in short, requires that the active factor of production, Labor, shall have free access to the passive factor of production, Land. To secure this all monopoly of land must be broken up, and the equal right of all to the use of the natural elements must be secured by the treatment of the land as the common property in usufruct of the whole people.

Thus it is that free trade brings us to the same simple measure as that which we have seen is necessary to emancipate labor from its thralldom and to secure that justice in the distribution of wealth which will make every improvement or reform beneficial to all classes.

The partial reform miscalled free trade, which consists in the mere abolition of protection — the mere substitution of a revenue tariff for a protective tariff — cannot help the laboring classes, because it does not touch the fundamental cause of that unjust and unequal distribution which, as we see today, makes “labour a drug and population a nuisance” in the midst of such a plethora of wealth that we talk of over-production. True free trade, on the contrary, leads not only to the largest production of wealth, but to the fairest distribution. It is the easy and obvious way of bringing about that change by which alone justice in distribution can be secured, and the great inventions and discoveries which the human mind is now grasping can be converted into agencies for the elevation of society from its very foundations.

Agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, etc are not promoting free trade.  They are however, destroying the manufacturing sector in the US.  It did however promote the spread of globalization which in turn out sourced thousands of Amewrican jobs to overseas locations.

I suggest that when Americans hear the words “free trade” uttered by their representatives then they sit up and ask questions.  So far it has not helped the US and its people.