Congress insults our intelligence when it tells us that Chinese currency games are to blame for our trade deficit with that country and unemployment in our own. Legislators might as well propose a fleet of men-o’-war to navigate the globe and collect all its gold: economics is not a zero-sum game.

An exchange on yesterday’s Laura Ingraham Show frames the debate nicely. The host asked Ted Cruz, the conservative Texan running for U.S. Senate, what he thought about the Chinese trade question. Said Cruz, “I think we need to be vigorous in dealing with China, but I think it’s a mistake to try to start a trade war with them.”

“The trade war is on, and we’re losing it,” Ingraham responded. “[China is] subverting the principles of free trade.”

We blockaded the ports of the Barbary pirates when they subverted the principles of free trade — is Ingraham looking for a similar response now? No, she wants weenier measures: just some punitive sanctions here and there to whip China back into shape (because those always work).

Conservatives who are looking through the Mercantilist spyglass have got to put it down, because it distorts economics in the same way Marxism does. Economic growth and expansion of the labor market e by the redistribution of wealth; e by allowing man to exercise his creative talents, to innovate, to produce.

Protectionists also tend to ignore the inverse relationship between the trade deficit and the inflow of capital to a country. We are a nation of entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs require investment. All business requires investment. If it’s Chinese investment, then Chinese investors see long term value in the U.S. economy. Sorry I’m not sorry about that.

Our leaders do the country a disservice by proclaiming that unemployment is caused by a trade deficit, and that a build-up of retaliatory tariffs is the way to fix the trade deficit. And they do other countries a disservice also, because U.S. protectionism hurts our trade partners (or potential trade partners). Holding back U.S. economic progress by artificially retaining manufacturing jobs, for example, means that workers in China or Vietnam are denied employment opportunities. It’s mindless selfishness.