In general, I'm a huge fan of free trade.

I think Smith's arguments still hold up remarkably well despite how long it's been.

If certain goods are made one place because of localized knowledge and higher education, other goods are produced in another place because of the climate or soil, other goods produced somewhere because the labor costs are low... as a general rule everyone benefits and such interconnected trade has lifted billions out of poverty and all that. Like... Brazil might be a better place for coffee beans and Colombia for cocaine. Whatever.

On the other hand, if the reason cost of production is low is that the country in question utilizes literal slave labor, well... ya gotta draw a line somewhere, yeah?

Not all of China's stuff utilizes slave labor and there's ways to account for where some of it comes from. I'm not saying we should cut off all trade with China. I just mean... avoiding indirectly subsidizing slave labor as a policy goal is a different argument than "trade is bad" or "not beneficial to us personally"or something.

It's a moral argument rather than just plain bad economics.