Trade Partners

After the third Republican debate last Thursday, I graded the debate as I had the first two. I took exception to Mitt Romney's first answer of the night:

Third, have trade policies "that work for us, not just for our opponents." (Whoa. Why are our trade partners suddenly our "opponents"?)

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who noticed that flub. Yesterday, Sallie James at CATO wrote the following (italics in original):

I’ll just interject here to say that by “opponents” I believe Mr Romney is referring to our trade partners. You know, the folks who sell us stuff and buy stuff from us.

Today, Don Boudreaux echoed the sentiment with a post titled "After Posting Here, I'll Buy Lunch and a Cup of Coffee from One of My Many Opponents." He also calls Romney an "ignoramus," a word which should be used a lot more often in public discourse.