America has a long history of seeking access to global markets to buy and sell goods and services. Yet trade policy has always been intertwined with national security questions. They are notoriously difficult to separate from each other, as efforts to promote national security impact trade, while trade with other countries often has national security implications.
National security is regularly invoked in debates about American trade policy to justify economic nationalist policies. This has been a feature of policy discussions concerning the US-China relationship for a decade. Free traders have always acknowledged genuine national security concerns as constituting a legitimate exception to their commitment to trade liberalization. In a world of states marked by geopolitical rivalries, governments sometimes have no choice but to trade off particular benefits of trade to meet national security needs.
Notwithstanding that reality, this paper holds that free trade generally enhances US national security, while economic nationalist or neo-mercantilist policies tend to undermine it. Trade liberalization does not guarantee harmony between states.