20 things you need to know about...
...Free trade

1 Expats are, by their nature, at the sharp end of globalisation, and in as far as globalisation implies free trade, they are its ambassadors

2 Or, perhaps, trade representatives for free trade.

3 Free trade is a counter-intuitive thing that humans do. It is natural to want to favour one’s own people over others. And that has traditionally meant putting barriers in place to foreign competition.

4 The first real apostle of free trade was early C19th British economist David Ricardo. He turned out to be a master of the counter-intuitive economic law, though.

5 Ricardo set up his own business as a dealer in government securities. He became immensely rich in a very short while. In 1814, at the age of 41, finding himself "sufficiently rich to satisfy all my desires and the reasonable desires of all those about me" Ricardo retired from city business, bought the estate of Gatcomb Park and set himself up as a country gentleman. And thought.