In a phone call between President Barack Obama and China’s President Hu Jintao both agreed that to fight the world economic crisis they would work together to correct global trade imbalances and unclog credit markets, the White House said on Friday in comments carried by Reuters. "President Obama stressed the need to correct global trade imbalances as well as to stimulate global growth and get credit markets flowing," it said. China’s official Xinhua news agency said Hu told Obama that China firmly opposed trade protectionism and said Beijing would join Washington to address the topic at an economic summit in London in April. "The two presidents [also] agreed to work together on global issues, specifically mentioning North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan-Pakistan, counterterrorism, proliferation, and climate change. President Obama expressed appreciation for China's role as chair of the six-party talks and the two sides affirmed the importance of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the White House said. In addition, the U.S. side hopes Beijing will “influence the leadership in Khartoum to prevent further violence against the people of Darfur," a State Department spokesman said.

 The Financial Times reports that at the international economic forum in Davos, China’s premier Wen Jiabao insisted that western countries had been negligent in their policies towards their financial institutions and promoted a culture of "low savings and high consumption,” which caused the global economic crisis. Wen refrained from criticizing the U.S. by name but made it clear that western policy mistakes were the key to the crisis. Wen argued that the crisis stemmed from factors such as "excessive expansion of financial institutions in blind pursuit of profit, and lack of self-discipline among financial institutions and rating agencies.” He highlighted "the failure of financial supervision and regulation to keep up with financial innovations which allowed the risks of financial derivatives to build and spread," and concluded that "developing countries should have greater say in international financial institutions [and] “establish a new world economic order that is just, equitable, sound and stable."
 

A fascinating article in the Atlantic (pdf) shows that globalization has not made the world flat.  Thomas Friedman (who never read a trade agreement and yet supported all of them) wrote a book saying the world is flat because of globalization.  Garbage.

Read the article, showing that economic activity is incredibly concentrated in a few places in the world.  Globalization has not changed this, and may exacerbate it.

This coming week will be slow as far as the Trade Reform blog goes.  The Coalition for a Prosperous America has a fly-in going on in DC.  We will talk to the Very. Smart. People. there.  That is the "fast" part, because a lot of work will be done, in the next few days, by many CPA members talking to many Representatives and Senators and their staff.

Saving the world takes on-the-ground work, sometimes in DC.  Though sometimes the best bank for your activist buck is in-the-field.  As much as bloviating on a blog is fun, it does not make an election difference like in-district advocacy.  And it does not make a difference like actually speaking to Senators and Representatives.

Also, bloviating on a blog can result in me calling someone a "wacko free trader," then having to face the wacko him or herself in DC.  Senate confirmation hearings would be no fun for me, even if someone was dumb enough to nominate me for something. 

I can hear the questions... "Why did you call this person a wacko?  Or that person an idiot?"  Answer:  "That was taken out of context and it wasn't really me and there are various definitions of 'wacko' and 'idiot' some of which are very complimentary so it really depends upon the specific use of the words 'wacko' and 'idiot'.  And the particular article at issue was really a reasoned commentary on blah, blah, blah..."

But back to the purpose of this Public Service Announcement.  CPA has a fly-in this week, so the Trade Reform blog posting will be a bit slow for a few days.  Enjoy the peace and quiet.  Or, better yet, call your Congress person and tell him or her not to vote with the wacko free traders.  Tell them you and many of your voting age friends will be watching.  Tell them to fix the trade deficit and to stop being taken in by the "protectionist" and "trade war" hyperventilation of the Talking Heads.  Tell them we need a National Trade Strategy.