IAN
FLETCHER

ECONOMIST & AUTHOR

Economist Ian Fletcher is one of America’s foremost experts on the problems of free trade. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn’t Work and the coauthor of  The Conservative Case Against Free Trade and Industrial Policy for the United States.

 

 

He has been senior economist at the Coalition, a research fellow at the US Business and Industry Council, an economist in private practice, and an IT consultant. He was educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He lives in San Francisco.

 

CPA Speakers Bureau Member: Ian Fletcher is available to speak to the topics of:

  1. Trade and Free Trade Agreements
  2. Why free trade is bad
  3. Globalization/globalism
  4. What’s wrong with economics as a discipline.

 

Ian Fletcher

MORE FROM IAN FLETCHER

Playlist

13 Videos

THE LATEST FROM CPA

Congress Should Fix Tariff Policy, Not Abolish It

Congress Should Fix Tariff Policy, Not Abolish It

Kenneth Rapoza November 10, 2026

The midterms are behind us. Everyone is reading the exit polls and looking for where to place blame. Anti-tariff Republicans and free trade promoters have spent the last few days purposefully conflating the cost of living crisis, which is real, with tariffs, which is a false narrative. In fact, since President Trump announced his global tariff policy in April 2025, tariffs have come down, including tariffs on China.

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Blaming Tariffs Won’t Fix the Cost-of-Living Crisis

Blaming Tariffs Won’t Fix the Cost-of-Living Crisis

Kenneth Rapoza November 2, 2026

Since September, there have been at least six surveys showing a general disagreement with the Trump administration’s tariff policy. The main takeaways are that the public is against the recent, new tariff impositions on Canada – and that tariffs are contributing to the rising cost of living. That these new polls are coming out during an election cycle is no surprise. But regardless of the timing, tariffs and their impacts on the rising cost of living could use some better explaining.

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After U.S. Restrictions, Chinese Connected Vehicles Face Growing Scrutiny in Europe

After U.S. Restrictions, Chinese Connected Vehicles Face Growing Scrutiny in Europe

Kenneth Rapoza October 30, 2026

In one month, between mid-September and mid-October, Chinese technology attached to new cars – mostly EVs, but not all – were called out in two European countries for essentially being data vacuums for China. In some cases, the data is collected for the companies to understand how the driver uses their product, and to make adjustments over time. But in other cases, they were used as on-board recording devices.

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