How is it, why is it, that Patrick Buchanan is such an excellent analyst of foreign policy, and yet an abject ignoramus when it comes to tariffs, free trade, protectionism? In a series of really excellent essays on U.S. interventionism, he sounds almost like Ron Paul or Murray Rothbard, to say nothing of the Founding Fathers, who counseled against going abroad to slay dragons or engage in entangling alliances. For example, this one, which appears on LewRockwell.com this very day (https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/12/patrick-j-buchanan/lessons-trump/). Here Pat tries to convince Donald to keep the U.S. military out of the Middle East in general, and Syria in particular. He makes a brilliant case. Here is one of my favorite lines: “It soon became clear that Assad’s most formidable enemies, and probable successors, would be the al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida, or ISIS, then carrying out grisly executions in their base camp in Raqqa. U.S. policy became to back the ‘good; rebels in Aleppo, bomb the ‘bad’ rebels in Raqqa and demand that Assad depart. An absurd policy.” But then, in addition, Mr. Buchanan has written a series of articles condemning free trade. It is as if he is totally ignorant of the niceties of comparative advantage. Has he never, ever, taken even one course in introductory microeconomics? Pat Buchanan appears unaware of that famous aphorism to the effect that if goods do not cross national borders, armies will. Ah, well, we cannot expect good sense from this man in both fields. Happily, for the promotion of liberty and libertarianism, he is nothing short of excellent, at least in foreign policy. According to Rothbard’s law, or at least one of them, political analysts specialize in fields they are worst in. For example, Milton Friedman was sound as a bell on minimum wages, free trade, rent control, occupational licensure, the list goes on and on. And in which subjects did he specialize? None of these. Rather, money and school vouchers, where he was horrid. Pat Buchanan is a seeming exception to this “law.” For, at least in my assessment, he is excellent in foreign policy, awful on international trade, and spends about an equal amount of his efforts on both.

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