Leadership Quote by Stephen F. Lynch

“Free” is doing a lot of sneaky work here. Lynch’s line is built to puncture a talking point that trade advocates repeat as if it’s self-evident: that lowering barriers automatically spreads prosperity. By yoking “free trade” to CAFTA as his proof text, he signals a specific political grievance from the mid-2000s debate over the Central America-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement: the suspicion that Washington sells deals as win-win while quietly tolerating the kinds of labor, environmental, and enforcement asymmetries that let the strongest players win biggest.

The intent is less economic theory than moral framing. “Free trade” sounds like a civil right; “fair trade” sounds like a workplace rule. Lynch is trying to drag the argument out of the realm of abstract efficiency and into the realm of standards: wages, worker protections, regulatory capacity, and whether the agreement has teeth for anything besides investor access. The subtext is a warning about a rigged playing field disguised as neutrality. If markets are “free” only in the sense that capital moves faster than accountability, then “free” becomes a euphemism for permission: permission to offshore risk, arbitrage regulations, and pressure domestic workers into competing with systems that don’t protect them.

Politically, it’s also a hedge against being labeled anti-trade. Lynch isn’t rejecting exchange; he’s rejecting the branding. The line works because it turns a bland adjective into an accusation: CAFTA isn’t just imperfect, it’s evidence that “free” can be the opposite of “fair,” and voters should notice who benefits from that confusion.