Sheldon Richman on Why Opposing Imperialism Is Not Isolationism

Ron Paul is for unilateral, unconditional free trade. He believes any American should be perfectly free to buy from or sell to any person in the world. In that sense—the laissez-faire sense—he favors globalization, which, applied consistently, would require a worldwide free market. He's such a strong advocate of free trade that he objects to the world's governments, led by the U.S. government, setting up international bureaucracies, such as the World Trade Organization, to manage trade. He thinks trade should be a totally private matter. So why, writes Sheldon Richman, is Paul repeatedly called an isolationist?