PRETZEL ILLOGIC :

Why Isn't Fast Track . . . Faster? (EDMUND L. ANDREWS, August 18, 2002, NY Times)

This month, he won a hard-fought battle when Congress narrowly approved a bill that gives the administration "fast track" authority to forge big agreements to lower trade barriers. The law prohibits Congress from tinkering with the deals - it can only ratify or reject them - and most trade experts say it is essential for establishing American negotiating credibility. [...]

The trouble is, the United States has created more problems by its own recent backsliding. By drastically increasing subsidies, the new farm bill has strengthened protectionist forces in Europe, where subsidies are much higher. [...]

The United States, one of the world's most open economies, generally benefits from an expansion in global trade. [...]

Supporters of the Bush administration, and even some foreign trade diplomats, say the president needed to compromise his free-trade instincts on both farm products and steel to win passage of fast track, known officially as Trade Promotion Authority. No country wants to waste time hammering out an agreement only to be forced to negotiate again with Congress.

"The passage of T.P.A. was essential," said Matthew Baldwin, a senior policy adviser to Pascal Lamy, the European Union's top trade negotiator, referring to fast-track authority.

But many trade experts wonder whether President Bush paid too high a price to pacify protectionists. [...]

Despite the complaints, most countries are desperate to gain greater access to the giant American market. Mr. Bush may have sullied his free-trade credentials when he capitulated to steel producers and farm groups, but many foreign diplomats say they have no choice but to keep seeking the best deal they can get.

As one diplomat in Geneva put it: "We don't like what they did on steel, and we don't like the farm bill, but we just have to deal with it."

Is it possible to contradict the premise of your own article any more frequently and forcefully than that? The story is supposedly about how the compromises the administration in order to get the trade bill through may have crippled the negotiations in advance, but Mr. Andrews then goes on to show that our negotiating partners have higher levels of protection, that the ones Mr. Bush added may have been necessary to get the bill through a reluctant Congress, that the bill was vital, and that we're such a huge market that despite all the grumbling folks have no other option than to go along with us anyway. So what the heck is the point of his story? Shouldn't it instead be a piece about how cannily the administration played the issue? Oh no, wait, it's the New York Times. Never mind. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 18, 2002 11:53 AM