You mean most every economist in the Bush administration don't you?
Ever hear of something called the World Trade Organization?
You are ignoring 80 years of trade liberalization and Bill Clinton's record of support for trade liberalization. From a speech given by Brad DeLong - an Associate Professor of Economics at U.C. Berkeley, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy for the first two and a half years of the Clinton administration
Today I think it is clear that the differences between President Clinton and former Senator Dole on international trade issues are large and important.
Three factors have led me to change my mind.
The first is that I did not understand, three and a half years ago, how being Governor of Arkansas for more than a decade had molded President Clinton's thinking about the importance of international trade for economic growth. In Governor Clinton's experience, the economy of Arkansas stagnated unless Arkansas companies could sell their products outside of Arkansas--and he spent a large chunk of his time as Governor promoting Arkansas companies and products, both to buyers in other states and to buyers abroad. He has generalized this more than decade of experience with the state to the nation. Thus ex-Governor Clinton feels in his bones the connection between exports in economic growth in a way that no ex-Senator does.
This leads into the second factor, the high demonstrated priority that President Clinton has given to trade--both trade liberalization measures, and also export expansion measures--in his administration. I heard domestic advisors warn that making NAFTA a high priority in the fall of 1993 would push health care into 1994, and give opponents an extra year to organize against health care reform; yet he made NAFTA his highest priority in the fall of 1993. I heard strategists warn that pushing for GATT approval in the fall of 1994 might weaken his political base among the non-pro-free-trade elements of the Democratic coalition; he made GATT approval a high priority in the fall of 1994.
In early 1995--when the administration was working to contain the Mexican peso crisis, and to stop it from becoming a general liquidity crisis affecting many industrializing economies--administration opposition to a badly-drafted balanced-budget amendment was moderated if it threatened to endanger bipartisan cooperation on international finance.
President Clinton has a proven, tested, visible record of being willing to take major political risks in order to do what he thinks is right for the country as far as international economic policy is concerned. And what he thinks is right for the country is lowering barriers to international trade and expanding U.S. access to export markets....
From our perspective this is unfortunate: for if the GATT and NAFTA debates have taught us anything, it is that the political heat on trade liberalization issues has become extremely high, as trade and the international economy have become lightning rods for economic discontent in general, economic discontent that has in reality very, very little to do with international trade.
Bottom line lizzie, your logic is circular. You are using election year rhetoric to support your view - a view, in itself, that is false and politically inspired. You can break this circle by attempting articulate some economic arguments to support your views. |
