 Hi there. My name is Don Boudreau. I'm a professor of economics at George Mason University and a senior fellow at George Mason's Mercatus Center. And I'm here today to talk about Adam Smith and his views on trade and the economy. So let's get started. It's an important question. It's a good question. And it's a question that takes a little bit of time to answer because there are a couple of things going on, a couple of different levels of discussion that must be kept in mind. Adam Smith did carve out a few exceptions to a policy of unilateral free trade, which was his policy goal. And he carved out a few exceptions to it. National defense is one of those exceptions. But Adam Smith was clear that a policy that to the extent that we use protectionism to secure our military preparedness at home, that is a cost to the economy. It's not a benefit. So he recognized that, okay, in some instances we might want to have tariffs say, these are my examples. I might have tariffs to protect the steel industry. We might want to have tariffs to protect the industry that makes critical components for fighter jets on national defense grounds. But if we go along with Smith, we recognize that these are costs. These are not benefits. And they may be costs worth bearing, but they're not beneficial for the economy. So in this degree, in this way, it's not really an exception to the case for free trade. It's not an exception to the economic case for free trade. It's an exception to the policy case for free trade. Yes, we might use on a rare occasion, a relatively rare occasion, protectionism for national defense purposes, but it is costly to the economy. I do wish in the Wealth of Nations that, I mean, it is as close to as perfect a book as I've ever read. That's how much I really admire the book. But it's not perfect. I do wish in the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith in that section would have been a little bit more clear that politicians should be viewed with suspicion when they argued in favor of using protectionism to support national defense. He agreed that intellectually it is a genuine case of an exception. And you can tell by reading between the lines that, and in other cases in the Wealth of Nations, he's very clear about this. He did not trust government officials. And in the case of national defense, we should also be leery of government officials who pull out the national defense exception. If only because it's simply too easy to do. And it can't be the case that the moment someone waves a flag and says, oh, we have to protect this industry for national defense reasons that we all go, oh, okay, then protectionism is allowed. Because if we do that, if we allow ourselves to accept the national defense explanation without much skepticism, then every industry suddenly becomes vital to the national defense. And we're back to a regime of protectionism of the sort that Adam Smith would have found completely unacceptable. But yes, Adam Smith did carve out an exception for national defense purposes.