PROTECTIONISM VS. PERSECUTIONISM

The `Free Trade' Fix Is In (NY Times, July 25, 2003)

The United States government has just added a final flourish of hypocrisy to its efforts to crush the Vietnamese catfish industry under a mountain of protectionism. The Vietnamese, after doing well enough to capture a fair share of the American market, have been declared trade violators deserving permanent, prohibitive tariffs by the United States International Trade Commission.

The case against the Vietnamese was brutally rigged by American fishing and political interests. It stands as an appalling demonstration to striving commercial nations that all the talk of globalization has not reined in the old power politics of marketeers in the United States, Europe and Japan. Their thumbs remain all over the scales of free trade.

No convincing evidence was presented that Vietnam is dumping its fish on the American market at prices below cost.

There should be no U.S. trade with them at all until Vietnam stops persecuting Christians.

Meanwhile, on the topic of free trade with free nations, comes this, House OKs Trade With Chile, Singapore (JIM ABRAMS, July 25, 2003, Associated Press)

The Bush administration's drive to open world markets to American goods and services gained momentum with House approval of free trade agreements with Singapore and Chile.

While the Senate is expected to give its quick endorsement, some lawmakers worried about the loss of jobs in the United States.

The deal would bring the first East Asian and South American nations into such trade accords with the United States. Singapore and Chile would join Canada and Mexico, participants in the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993, and Israel and Jordan as the only other free trade partners.

The new deal will "not only create American jobs and save American money, but also reaffirm our commitment to countries who value the free market," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. [...]

The House on Thursday passed both measures by unusually strong votes, reflecting the lack of resistance to deals with prosperous countries that have good labor and environmental records. The deal with Chile passed by 270-156 and Singapore's pact by 272-155.

Labor groups and their supporters in Congress said the labor standards in the two agreements, which leave it to Singapore and Chile to enforce their own laws, must not be used in future negotiations with less developed countries where protections are weaker. [...]

"The real gold ring here is to have a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas," said Bill Morley, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's vice president for legislative affairs. He said closer U.S.-Chile trade relations would soften the resistance of Brazil and others to a hemisphere-wide trade pact.

The Chile and Singapore deals are the first since Congress, after an eight-year lapse, last year granted the president authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can accept or reject but cannot change.

Seems more significant than communist catfishing, no?

MORE:
Bush Arm Twisting Squeezes Out Narrow House Fast Track Win (AFL-CIO, 7/28/2002) Posted by Orrin Judd at July 25, 2003 8:16 AM