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Harold Meyerson. He writes op-eds for the Washington Post
(WaPo). I really hadn't paid much attention to him. But he
wrote a fabulous article published Thursday. Many of you have
probably seen it, but I've been out for a few days and just saw it now.
The piece is Missing: Our Trade Stategy.
The topic is the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. (We really have
to come up with a different name than "free trade agreement" because
they are nothing of the sort, and everytime I name the deal, I
reinforce the happy "free trade" smiley face).
President Bush has sent his trade pact with Colombia to Capitol
Hill, and suddenly Washington is not only ablaze with cherry blossoms
but cluttered by chestnuts. Every old argument for the virtues of free
trade is being recycled by the league of American editorialists, whose
all-but-universal commitment to a failed policy will surely excite the
wonder of future historians.
The amazing thing about the free-traders' arguments is that they never
change. Today's free-trade commentaries make the same points as the
pro-NAFTA editorials of 1993-94. Now, as then, bilateral trade is a
win-win proposition for the peoples of both signatory nations. It
raises living standards in developing nations. An educated American
workforce has nothing to fear from competition.
Read these commentaries, and you'd think that the past 15 years hadn't
happened. If NAFTA had been a win for Mexico, the millions of its
farmers displaced by U.S. agribusiness would have found better jobs in
Mexican industry. Instead, with Mexico failing to invest in its own
people, and with China supplanting Mexico as our manufacturers'
preferred source of cheap labor, those farmers are disproportionately
the immigrants who've crossed the border to work here in the States.
Very good. The editorial board arguments are, indeed, so
1994. The WaPo editorial board is guilty. Sebastian
Mallaby, op-ed contributor at WaPo is guilty. The NYT editorial
board is guilty.
He not only chastises, but suggests a solution. A national strategy to ensure that Americans benefit.
In short, while we've been practicing free trade, we've been
devoid of any national policy geared toward retaining or creating good
jobs. It's not that such policies are so difficult to devise. Indeed,
while European nations have defended their high-skill manufacturing
jobs and professionalized and increased the skill levels needed for
many service-sector jobs, and while Asian nations have worked
assiduously to build their manufacturing sectors, only the United
States and Britain have opted not to develop national economic
strategies. ...
What's been missing in America's trade policy is a preference for
Americans. The object of trade in China is to help the Chinese nation.
German trade is designed to help Germany; Scandinavian, to help the
Scandinavian nations. This is not the case here. General Electric goes
abroad to lower costs and boost profits. ... In the absence
of such a national economic strategy, is it any wonder that by margins
of better than two to one, Americans now oppose free trade?
Again. Very good.
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