MALA : The New York Times on NAFTA and CAFTA : No Alternative

...But special interests strike again: “The Teamsters, the Sierra Club and other groups said they would continue their legal fight to stop the program because of ‘serious safety, environmental, smugscripture, that is, to the opinion And in “Select Speed Bump of “most economists...

...Will the candidates follow through on their opposition to free trade policies once in office, or will they face reality and do what’s obviously right...

...government complied with the model’s requirements...

...ment,” wrote former labor secretaryRobertReichinthe actually do in office,” Cooper writes...

...Even though specialization in both countries could pro duce cloth more efficiently wine kept it in a (at lower cost) than an backward, under-equivalently valued amount of wine, Britain’s “comparadeveloped state tive advantage” in producfor two centuries, ing cloth was greater than while england Portugal’s...

...But power within the Democratic Party is the real issue in this article, rather than a serious consideration of the benefits of one trade policy over another...

...Nonetheless, “most econo-Democratic campaigning to the argu-mists” advocate an abstract model...

...But ment that “most economists still agree reality does not always conform to free that free trade, for the most part, helps trade models, such as when Times regressive policies to constrain them face a porous, borderlessandnowhighlyelectronic international economy...

...In a Gretel C. Kovach article titled “For Mexican have a perfect issue for the party of the left: the rich are getting richer, but sizable productivity gains and rising corporate profits are not paying off for the workingandmiddleclasses...

...When Naftafinallybecameareality,onJan.1, 1994,” Uchitelle writes, “American investment flooded into Mexico, mostly to finance factories that manufacture automobiles, appliances, TV sets, apparel and the like...

...A Helene Cooper piece titled “Democrats’ Third Rail: Free Trade” (August 12, 2007) opens by noting that the Democratic presidential candidates “all sounded the same critical note about the North American Free Trade Agreement when they debatedinfrontofanaudience of union members in Chicago...

...Why, we should ask, do these serious questions constitute a “paint-by-the-numbers portrait...

...This universalized position is un-The forces of international competi-derpinned by the theory of “comparation have proved more powerful than tive advantage” proposed in the 19th any government, and advocates of ag-century by English political economist David Ricardo...

...Edsall observes that power has shifted withintheparty“infavoroftheprotectionistwing, and especially in favor of such major unions as the Fred Rosen is NACLA’s senior analyst...

...What led to this failure...

...But that did not happen...

...Most economists,” it seems, are hardly infallible...

...NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS mala Teamsters, the Steelworkers and the the economy, through increased job Autoworkers, all key party support-creation and lower prices, more than it ers with money and manpower...

...at the Border” (November 28, Economists have become the 2006),ThomasB.Edsallreports keepers of the hegemonic faith, Media Accuracy that “Democrats preparing to endeavoring to make the nar-on Latin America take over Congress appear to row,particularinterestsofruling groups in the free trade debate appeartobethoseofsocietyasawhole.Thisisevident in the Times’ bias in portraying opponents of free trade treaties as “special interests,” while supporters are “most economists,” who support free trade on the basis of universal, objective, value-free arguments...

...Nowhere in the article are CAFTA supporters referred to as having “special” interests...

...September9,2007), we learn that “Mexican truckers are expected to begin transporting goods throughout the United States in coming days, after a decision Thursday night by the Transportation Department that provisionally lifted restrictions confining them to the border region...

...The great economists, she argued, have long taught us that such trade regimesaresuperiortoallothers...

...it was thus in Portugal’s interest to spedeveloped an cialize in producing wine industrialeconomy and trading it for cheaper English cloth...

...The villains are C.E.O.s, investment bankers and corporate managers who refuse to pass on profits in the form of higher wages,” Edsall continues...

...This has been typical of the paper’s recent NAFTA coverage, some of which has been genuinely sympathetic to groups harmed by free trade provisions...

...without the proposed investments in infrastructure, foreign-owned maquiladoras appeared only near the U.S...

...In “Free Trade Pact Faces Trouble in Congress” (May 10, 2005), reporter Elizabeth Becker notes thatCAFTA,inadditionto“facingunusuallyunited Democraticopposition,”mustcontendwith“wellentrenched special interest groups like sugar producers and much of the textile industry,” together with labor unions, which are raising “questions about labor rights and lost jobs,” and arguing that CAFTA, as currently written, does not impose real sanctions to enforce “existing labor laws in Central America...

...Ricardo’s have pointed out famous example was the trade of British cloth for Porthat Portugal’s tuguese wine...

...Uchitelle quotes economist J. Bradford DeLong, a Treasury official in the Clinton administration: “We underestimated Mexico’s deficits in physical and human infrastructure...

...There has always been a huge space between what candidates say when they’re running for president and what they porter Louis Uchitelle asks why NAFTA didn’t diminish illegal immigration to the United States in ways it was supposed to (“Nafta Should Have Stopped Illegal Immigration, Right...

...But kept it in a backward, underdeveloped there is a sleight-of-hand here: This state for two centuries, while England acknowledgement of realpolitik be-developed an industrial economy comes an endorsement of free trade based on steam-powered textile pro-theory, as Cooper shifts a critique of duction...

...Again, the opinion of larly for Democrats...

...But hurts it, through jobs lost to low-wage reality will triumph: “Over time . . . competitors around the world...

...the protectionists] are likely to fail...

...Times, “although the popular debate “When it comes to trade, that space is over the merits of free trade continues” bigger than on most issues—particu-(April 2, 2006...

...February 18, 2007...

...JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 mala The New York Times on NAFTA and CAFTA: No Alternative by fred rosen M argaret thatcher once admonished her critics with the assertion that, like it or not, “there is no alternative” to free markets and free trade...

...Mexico’s economy did not boom, jobs were not created, wages did not rise, and workers migrated to South Carolina, Kansas, and New York...

...border, “where some infrastructure already existed...

...Why, then, does the Times so frequently invoke their opinions as gospel...

...Thus, sometimes reality is inconvenient for neo-Ricardian theory because people do not act “rationally...

...Neither the Mexican nor the U.S...

...trade opponent who acknowledges But many critical economists, largely that Democrats, after arguing against ignored by the Times, have pointed out free trade pacts, have pushed most of that Portugal’s specialization in wine them through after taking office...

...Most econ based on steam omists and policy makers powered textile now accept Ricardo’s arguproduction...

...The expectation was thattheMexicangovernmentwoulddo its part by investing billions of dollars inroads,schooling,sanitation,housing and other needs to accommodate the new factories as they spread through the country...

...Hethensarcasticallycharacterizes free trade opponents as self-interested, outdated protectionists whose critique is a “paintby-the-numbers portrait of the greedy picking the pockets of the needy...

...TheNewYorkTimes has taken the same position in its coverage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).AndlikeThatcher,the paper’s reporters invariably supTrucks,aRoadIntotheU.S...

...Countries Many critical maximize the mutual bene-economists, fits of trade, the theory goes, by specializing in goods that largely ignored they have an edge in pro-by the Times, ducing efficiently...

...The victims are workers who struggle to deal with an increasingly unreliable and, for many, unrewardingmarketplace—producingmorewhile under the constant threat of job, health care and pension loss...

...most economists” trumps the “popuThe reporter then quotes a free lar debate” and settles the issue...

...Uchitelle finds that “a major factor lies in the assumptions made in drafting the trade agreement, assumptions about the way governments would behave (that is, rationally) and the way markets would respond (rationally, as well...