In Saving Free Trade the argument was that the pragmatic free trader should support policies to control transition costs - namely, Trade Readjustment Assistance - and that the then operating
voluntary restraint agreements would only burden the American consumer rather than help in any way to revitalize the sunset industries they were intended to help.
Because he wants readers to make their own informed decisions, they and Ed must grapple with sunk costs, opportunity costs, present value, factor mobility, dumping, tariffs, quotas,
voluntary restraint agreements, the infant industry argument, the national security argument, industrial policy, the rise of the service sector, income inequality, the causes of the Japanese catch-up, how to correctly compare incomes across countries, and many other issues and concepts.