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April
3, 2002 10:00 a.m.
Dem
Trade Myths
Democratic
excuses for abandoning free trade.
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 resident
Bush's recent protectionist moves on steel, lumber, and textiles have
drawn a barrage of largely justified criticism. But among Democrats, some
self-serving myths are rising around these decisions. The first is that
Bill Clinton was pure and virtuous on trade. It is true that President
Clinton never gave in to the steel industry's demands that he initiate
a "Section 201" case (in which the International Trade Commission
would investigate whether an import surge has hurt an industry and recommends
relief), as Bush did last summer. But it is also true that when other
people initiated 201 cases and the ITC came out for tariffs, Clinton never
said no. The steel decision may have been a bigger blow to free trade
than those capitulations because it involves a more important sector of
the economy. But by the same token, Clinton was under less political pressure
than Bush to say yes.
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The
second myth that has gained currency is that Democrats were willing, nay
eager, to support free trade if not for Republican partisanship. Bush's
trade officials contend that protectionism in the textile, lumber, and
steel industries is the price they had to pay to get some House Republicans
to support a more important free-trade bill — a bill, called "trade
promotion authority," that would let the president negotiate trade
deals that Congress could vote up or down but not amend.
Democrats
say that Bush wouldn't have needed to rely on these Republicans to pass
the bill if he had made some concessions to them. The Democrats wanted
provisions addressing their concerns that free trade hurts labor and environmental
standards. Frank Foer, writing in The
New Republic, has reported that the Republicans decided not to
make any compromises because they didn't want Democratic votes. Foer quotes
"one lobbyist close to the House leadership" saying that Republicans
wanted to use the vote to show business lobbies that the Democrats were
protectionists. So compromises on labor and the environment — which
Foer calls "the glue that held together the free-trade coalition
during the Clinton years" — were not made. In Slate,
Timothy Noah has repeated this claim.
Foer's
article was an excellent analysis of how Bush's protectionism is hurting
some of our allies in the war on terror. But I think this minor point
of his article was wrong. During the months leading up to the vote, my
own sources in the House leadership indicated a good deal of anxiety about
getting Democratic votes. And there are several reasons for thinking that
the stated Democratic objections to the trade-promotion bill were bogus.
First,
there's not much evidence that free trade does in fact threaten labor
and environmental standards. Second, if Democrats concluded that a trade
deal President Bush negotiated did in fact threaten these standards, they
would always be able to vote down that deal. The trade-promotion bill
just got the negotiations started.
Third,
Bush's version of the trade-promotion bill did more to address such concerns
than any previous bill. President Clinton's 1997 version of the bill did
not contain similar language regarding labor and environmental standards.
Before the bill had to be pulled off the House floor, it was estimated
that it would get up to 40 Democratic votes.
The
labor-and-environment question is less an issue than an excuse. It's an
excuse for Democratic politicians who don't want to tell businessmen that
they're stiffing them because they're beholden to the unions. It's also
an excuse for free-trading liberal pundits who want to explain away Democratic
protectionism.
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