Seizing The Straw

Man...I'm shifting to a position to the right of Ed Kilgore's:

Nobody's a pure free trader, and I hope no Democrat really believes that the United States should refuse to trade with anybody. We're all opposed to “unfair trade deals,” and we all understand that the kind of economic growth we need to resume the growth of the 1990s -- and, for that matter, to defend our values and interests around the world -- depends on continued U.S. global economic leadership. We can agree to disagree about the specifics, but as Marshall and Kuttner wrote in their joint Prospect piece, the broader mission of Democrats is to do everything possible to equip Americans -- through everything from lifelong learning to health insurance to strengthened collective bargaining rights -- to obtain economic opportunity and security in the face of global competition that will not go away no matter how many or how few trade agreements are signed.

I'm a pure free trader. An "unfair trade deal" certainly sounds like a bad thing (unfairness usually does), but operationally this tends to mean opposing deals which provide more benefits for foreign export-oriented companies than they do for American export-oriented countries. I, personally, have no problem with deals like that. Indeed, I think our trade policy could probably stand for more of the old school trade unilateralism where you just lower barriers to entry and don't worry so much about making "deals" of any sort. The quintessential "unfair" trade practice -- so-called "dumping" where people sell us stuff that's very cheap -- is, to my way of thinking, an excellent thing to be a "victim" of -- you get cheap stuff. That said, I agree about the whole "broader mission of Democrats" and what follows business.

See also on the Prospect website, Bob Kuttner gives George Will the finger.