After the Second World War there were huge tariffs on imports, quotas and other restrictions on trade. It took more than half a century of gradual chipping away at those restrictions to create the present liberal trade environment.So what matters is not our having to pay more for orange juice. We assume that general freedom of trade is normal because that has been the situation for the past generation But actually that freedom has been hard won. The trouble is that a lot of people don’t really believe it, for they see the costs of free trade – the loss of jobs to China or India – while not really appreciating the benefits in the form of cheaper goods. But at any rate, while we are now the third largest importer in the world after the US and Germany, this penchant to import has not stopped us being the fastest-growing large economy in Europe.

In fact the two go together: if you grow faster than your neighbours you are liable to increase your imports more rapidly than your exports.So to be an open economy is to be a successful one. Try buying US wine in France, or vice versa, even before the latest spat over Iraq. I think it is probably for cultural and historical reasons that Britain has become such an open market. Despite the latent protectionism in America, the fact remains that it is a vast market for imports, and its consumer is benefiting from the cheap imports from the rest of the world.We benefit too from our open attitude, both in the variety of goods available and in our growth performance. A British supermarket has a much wider range of items from a wider range of countries than, say, a French or an American one.

Meanwhile America has experienced an extraordinary consumer-led boom, with the US consumer becoming the main engine of growth in the world. Restriction of imports reinforced an anti-consumer culture, which condemned the country to slow growth. Its argument was that Japanese snow conditions were different to American, so skiers needed special Japanese-made products. I was told that by a senior Japanese official with a completely straight face.But much good have import controls done Japan. The country is showing some growth in the past few months but has spent most of the past decade mired in recession. And countries tend to end up hurting themselves more than the enemy when they restrict imports Take Japan.