The absurdity of trade policy

We do grasp the justification that people use for trade barriers and tariffs. But why should British, domestic, producers have to face that competition from those nasty foreigners? To which the correct answer is that we should be running the economy for the benefit of consumers, not producers - the competition is the very point of trade.

But even if we put that simple truth to one side we still have this:

The UK will officially join CPTPP next year, after legislation has been passed and ratified. The Treasury estimates the deal will be worth £1.8bn a year for the economy within a decade.

Other allowances made under the terms of the deal include reduced tariffs to accommodate imports of bananas from Peru, crab sticks from Singapore, and rice from Vietnam.

For at least two of those three we have no domestic production at all. Rice and bananas simply do not grow on or in our sceptered and silver girt isles. So why does it take some grand and vast international agreement to stop taxing ourselves into poverty on these items?

Now that we have left the European Union such import tariffs are our own decision - as evidenced by this deal itself. But how did we end up with a polity that hasn’t, doesn’t, make us richer by doing the obvious thing that we’ve now the power to do? Make us all richer by abolishing import tariffs?

Answers on a postcard to Ms. Badenoch please.