Democrats’ Third Rail: Free Trade

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/weekinreview/12cooper.html?hp

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON

THE Democratic presidential candidates all sounded the same critical note about the North American Free Trade Agreement when they debated in front of an audience of union members in Chicago on Tuesday.

“Well, I had said that for many years that, you know, Nafta and the way it’s been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers,” said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, conveniently not mentioning that her husband wrapped up the trade pact’s negotiations and pushed it through Congress when he was president.

“We should never have another trade agreement unless it enforces labor protection, environmental standards and job safety,” chimed in Gov. Bill Richardson, who as a Democratic whip in the House in 1993 helped Mr. Clinton win approval of the trade deal with Mexico and Canada.

There has always been a huge space between what candidates say when they’re running for president and what they actually do in office. When it comes to trade, that space is bigger than on most issues — particularly for Democrats. Far more than their Republican counterparts, Democratic presidential candidates rely on labor unions — committed free trade foes — for money and manpower.

On the campaign trail, cozying up to labor by bashing trade makes short-term sense. Everyone does it. Mr. Clinton did so when he was campaigning in 1992, and that is partly why the labor unions were so mad at him when he became president and then pushed through Nafta and other trade deals, including the pact that established the World Trade Organization, and even negotiated China’s entry into the global trading system. But once a candidate becomes president, things change. And that’s where the space between what a candidate says on the campaign trail and what he or she does after being elected shows up. Even staunch free trade foes who welcome the trade-bashing during primary season acknowledge this fact of life.

“I don’t have my head in the sand,” said John Sellers, president of the Ruckus Society, a human rights advocacy group that opposes most trade pacts. “I have a hard time believing that this is anything but spin on their part. Nafta and the most nefarious anti-labor agreements in the W.T.O. were all ratified under the Democrats’ watch.”

FULL story at link.

[Warpy]

1. I don't see this as a flip flop

I think that the dogma of free trade, having finally been applied, has demonstrated so many horrible unintended consequences that most Democrats who supported it as a matter of course are thinking about rewriting the deal.

Free trade has been a great deal for third world countries, most of which are still protectionist. It has been a terrible deal for the non protectionist US, which has seen its industry shipped overseas and its people beggared by service industry jobs that don't provide the living wage that factory jobs did.

Obviously, the whole thing has to be rethought. This country has exported so much necessary industry it no longer produces enough for the population to survive the next big war: no shoes, no cloth, no electronics, and even pharmaceutical necessities like vaccines are now from offshore.

Something has got to change. I will trust people who say they've awakened to that fact. I will not trust anyone who still spouts the free trade dogma without insisting on fair trade.