WHAT THREAT?:

Asia’s Agenda: This Time, Terrorism Takes a Back Seat to Trade Issues (DAVID E. SANGER, 11/22/06, NY Times)

“The Asians got tired of all this homework, and began to organize their own summit, one that excluded the United States, to return to the trade issues they view as so central,” said Michael Green, who left the administration late last year after running the Asia side of the National Security Council. “I think some in the administration realized we were sounding a little shrill on terrorism — because there has been a lot of quiet cooperation in Asia — and it was time to get the president back to the trade agenda.”

So instead of pressing the hunt for Al Qaeda affiliates in Indonesia and terror groups like Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, this time Mr. Bush talked about the distant goal of creating a free trade area in the Pacific.

The talk was motivated partly by a desire to avoid American exclusion: Mr. Bush’s proposal for a sprawling free-trade area would compete with calls in Asia for a regional one that would exclude non-Asian countries. But it was less of an initiative than a long-range vision, like President Clinton’s call for a “free trade area of the Americas” in the early 1990s.

“It’s a recognition that in Asia, economics is where the game is — with China, and of course with India and others — and in that arena, the president has been in deep kimchi,” said James Lilley, who served as American ambassador to China and South Korea, and is close to Mr. Bush’s father.

Freer trade will do more to defeat terrorism than hunting down a few more AQ remnants.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 22, 2006 2:42 PM