This argument doesn't hold up. By that reasoning (safety, workers rights, environmental concerns) every industry is special and deserves subsidy. Can mine be better subsidised please?
To be fair, I don't believe in free trade outside equal partners.
That is, I think trade should be completely unrestricted to foreign markets that are within some economic margin (let's say US, Japan, Canada, and Germany to come up with a very incomplete list) and in any other cases should be subject to significant restrictions.
I don't like the fact that it's nearly impossible to pay someone in America an honest wage to put together t-shirts or running shoes. I don't like the fact that I'd be hard-pressed to buy a t-shirt or a running shoe that wasn't assembled by a person who is more like a slave than not.
But also,
Food is something fundamental, something important, more important than almost anything else and really easy to export the production. We might be ok letting some industries be entirely foreign, because maybe they're less essential... basic sustenance though is in a different class of importance. It's not a fad, it'll never go away unlike many industries that seek protections when they should just be allowed to die.
