|
McCain is a wacko free trader, not in the conservative
tradition. Republicans are typically not trade liberals, until
now.
You cannot name one country, not one. That
developed successfully under free trade policies of the type prescribed
today. Not one.
This op-ed from a Reaganite makes the case better than I.
******
The New York Times
March 6, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
Grand Old Protectionists
By ROBERT E. LIGHTHIZER
Washington
NOW that John McCain is, formally, the presumptive presidential nominee
of the Republican Party, he can stop worrying about winning primaries
and caucuses and start worrying about winning over conservatives. Mr.
McCain still faces a large challenge from his right in the fall, as
many conservatives suspect he isn’t really one of them.
To prove his bona fides as a conservative, Mr. McCain and his defenders
often cite his support for free trade. A writer in National Review, for
example, suggested last year that conservatives should support Senator
McCain because he is, in Mr. McCain’s own estimation, the strongest
free trader in the Senate since Phil Gramm (an adviser to Mr. McCain)
left that body.
Mr. McCain may be a conservative. But his unbridled free-trade policies don’t help make that case. (hit "read more")
Free trade has long been popular with liberals, and it remains so
with liberal elites today. The editorial pages of major newspapers
consistently support free trade. Ted Kennedy supported the advance of
free trade. President Bill Clinton fought hard to win approval of the
North American Free Trade Agreement. Despite some of his campaign
rhetoric, Barack Obama is careful to express qualified support for free
trade, even when stumping in the industrial Midwest.
Moreover, many American conservatives have opposed free trade. Jesse
Helms, the most outspoken conservative in the Senate for three decades,
was no free trader. Neither was Alexander Hamilton, who could be
considered the founder of American conservatism.
For almost 100 years after the Civil War, the Republican Party (led by
men like Lincoln and McKinley) was overtly protectionist. Theodore
Roosevelt, a hero of John McCain’s, wrote that “pernicious indulgence
in the doctrine of free trade seems inevitably to produce fatty
degeneration of the moral fiber.”
The first significant Republican free trader was President Dwight
Eisenhower. But Harry Truman tried to recruit him to run for the White
House as a Democrat, and his political affiliation was not clear until
he actually began running for the 1952 Republican nomination.
Conservatives in 1952 supported the presidential bid of Robert Taft, a
steadfast opponent of free trade.
If you watched the Republican presidential debates — and had no other
knowledge of economic history — you might believe that Ronald Reagan,
the personification of modern conservatism, was a pure free trader.
During a debate in Michigan, for example, Mr. McCain said that
President Reagan “must be spinning in his grave” to hear Republicans
expressing concerns about free trade. But while free traders like to
quote some of President Reagan’s open-markets rhetoric, they did not
like many of his actual trade policies.
President Reagan often broke with free-trade dogma. He arranged for
voluntary restraint agreements to limit imports of automobiles and
steel (an industry whose interests, by the way, I have represented). He
provided temporary import relief for Harley-Davidson. He limited
imports of sugar and textiles. His administration pushed for the “Plaza
accord” of 1985, an agreement that made Japanese imports more expensive
by raising the value of the yen.
Each of these measures prompted vociferous criticism from free traders.
But they worked. By the early 1990s, doubts about Americans’ ability to
compete had been impressively reduced.
President Reagan’s pragmatism contrasted strongly with the utopian
dreams of free traders. Ever since Edmund Burke criticized the French
philosophes, Anglo-American conservatism has rejected ivory-tower
theories that disregard the realities of everyday life.
Modern free traders, on the other hand, embrace their ideal with a
passion that makes Robespierre seem prudent. They allow no room for
practicality, nuance or flexibility. They embrace unbridled free trade,
even as it helps China become a superpower. They see only bright lines,
even when it means bowing to the whims of anti-American bureaucrats at
the World Trade Organization. They oppose any trade limitations, even
if we must depend on foreign countries to feed ourselves or equip our
military. They see nothing but dogma — no matter how many jobs are
lost, how high the trade deficit rises or how low the dollar falls.
Conservative statesmen from Alexander Hamilton to Ronald Reagan
sometimes supported protectionism and at other times they leaned toward
lowering barriers. But they always understood that trade policy was
merely a tool for building a strong and independent country with a
prosperous middle class.
Free traders like Mr. McCain instead rely too often on the notion that
we should change the country to suit their trade policy — an approach
that is not in the best traditions of American conservatism.
Robert E. Lighthizer, a trade lawyer, was a deputy trade representative
in the Reagan administration and the treasurer of Bob Dole’s 1996
presidential campaign.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed