During second-to-last year of homeschooled high school, when I mostly poured all my energy into debate club, my sister and I wrote a case on trade policy. The idea was that there were reports of child slavery on cacao farms in west Africa, and the solution we proposed was to put high tariffs on all cacao imported into the US unless it was fair trade certified by an NGO to guarantee that it was produced without slave labor.
I emailed an economics professor at Brown University to see what she thought of our plan. She kindly replied that in her many years of experience in international trade policy, she had learned that we could exert more influence by maintaining connections with other countries than by cutting off connections.
That idea is still stuck in my mind. I can't find the email anymore, but I hope that someday I'll have the wisdom and patience to reply like she did if anyone ever asks my advice.
