Source: EconLog
by Pierre Lemieux
“There are three ways to get rich or richer. You can loot the rich, as long as they remain rich. You can loot the poor, a specialty of the brand of collectivism called communism. Or you can trade with the rich or the poor. The third way is how, in general, Americans — individual Americans — have become rich. Thirty percent of the growing Vietnamese’s incomes come from selling goods to Americans, rich or not. More recently, the Vietnamese have benefited from the American trade war with the Chinese (whose GDP per capita is $24,558), whose exports to Americans were partly replaced by Vietnamese exports, legally or illegally. We should not put too much focus on the illegal part: in their time (I am thinking of the 1808-1909 trade embargo), Americans were also good smugglers. Many still are.” (11/22/24)
https://www.econlib.org/mississippi-vietnam-and-human-decency/