No need for Ivanka to apologize for sourcing her clothing in Ethiopia

Daniel Griswold
Mad About Trade
Published in
1 min readJul 18, 2017

Ivanka Trump is being criticized for letting workers in Ethiopia make her line of clothing for sale in the U.S. at the same time President Trump is declaring “Made in America” week. No need for Ivanka to apologize or change business practices. Those jobs left the United States decades ago, and don’t pay very well anyway. And by importing clothing, we can devote more resources to producing jet engines and computer chips and other higher value goods for export. But in Ethiopia, these are among the best jobs available. By employing Ethiopians, Ivanka has done more to reduce global poverty than most of the rest of us. Free trade is a win-win.

BTW, all this applies to her dad’s importing of ties and shirts for his own line of branded clothing.

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Published in Mad About Trade

Observations on Trade, Globalization and Immigration

Written by Daniel Griswold

Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director, Trade & Immigration Project, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, VA

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