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 merica's
war on terror has employed Daisy Cutter bombs, missile-equipped
surveillance drones, and forensic accountants who have dammed al-Qaeda's
illicit cash flows. Free trade should be another arrow in America's
anti-terrorist quiver. Countries that aid this new war, especially
those in the Middle East, should gain duty-free access to American
markets.
President Bush
should propose FTAAT: the Free Trade Area Against Terrorism. Through
this dramatic initiative, America would offer carrots to Muslim
countries that fight terrorists just as it surely will smite with
sticks those that fund, harbor, or train them.
Such trade
terms would delight Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. He must
be stunned to watch Washington resist his pleas to cut or scrap
the 17% average U.S. textile tariff so Pakistani producers can sell
towels, bed sheets, and T-shirts to American buyers. After giving
U.S. forces intelligence and logistical support and cracking down
on Islamic zealots, it must pain Musharraf that the Bush administration
and Congress have offered the Pakistani textile industry only a
meager package of $140 million in higher import quotas for certain,
specific goods. This equals just 7.8% of Pakistan's $1.8 billion
in textile exports to the U.S., even as those enterprises struggle
to regain customers scared away by violence next door in Afghanistan.
"If the
Americans want us to have constant, friendly relations, they should
give us an access in textiles as demanded," S.M.A. Rizvi of
the Pakistani Towel Manufacturers Association told the Business
Recorder. "It is not a question of bargaining, rather it
is something like a friend in need is a friend indeed." Alas,
Pakistan's strategic importance impresses neither U.S. textile companies
nor their tariff-loving pals in Congress.
If mobs of
unemployed washcloth makers toppled Musharraf who would replace
him? Perhaps a rejuvenated Taliban, this time with control of Pakistan's
nuclear arsenal. Such a doomsday scenario should not become reality
due to U.S. fears of cheaper merchandise at Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Afghanistan
and Yemen should join FTAAT, too. The former, of course, was liberated
with the Pentagon's help. U.S. purchases of rugs and wool would
help the Afghans rise from the rubble. The latter recently invited
100 U.S. personnel to help its Republican Guard liquidate al-Qaeda
fugitives on its soil. Exporting cotton cloth and leather goods
to America also would help Yemen develop.
Jordan already
enjoys such progress. Along with Canada, Mexico, and Israel, it
is only the fourth nation to share a bilateral free-trade agreement
with the U.S. This allows products manufactured with at least 8%
Israeli raw materials and shipped from special "Qualified Industrial
Zones" to enter America duty free.
"In the
past two years alone," Senator Joseph Lieberman observed on
January 14, "Jordan's exports to the United States have risen
tenfold, and more than 25,000 new jobs have been created as a result."
FTAAT would
let U.S. policy makers help friendly societies from top to bottom.
It would let
leaders such as Musharraf and Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai show their
people that fighting Islamic terrorists has earned them something
valuable: unfettered entree to America's 280 million consumers.
FTAAT would
cultivate and enrich entrepreneurs. Since petroleum usually belongs
to oil-producing governments, U.S. purchases of "black gold"
fill national treasuries. But sales of textiles and rugs likelier
benefit private parties. A Middle-Eastern business class would bolster
peace and stability. Exporters do not like seeing their customers
detonated.
Free trade
would create jobs for poor Middle Easterners as outward-looking
companies expand and diversify. U.S. national security will improve
if those who otherwise would throw stones at U.S. embassies instead
produce things to fill American shelf space. Ultimately, Muslim
workers engaged in gainful, export-related employment will be too
busy for jihad.
Warning: This
approach is no panacea. Poverty and terrorism do not necessarily
walk hand in hand. The September 11 hijackers, after all, were mainly
prosperous and well-educated. Still, the U.S. would be safer if
people in an often hostile area saw America as pivotal to their
livelihoods rather than merely the font of such irritants as Britney
Spears. Given a chance to befriend suppliers between Morocco and
Malaysia, America would be suicidally idiotic to sacrifice such
an opportunity on the altar of domestic protectionism.
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