FREE-TRADE NATIONALISM
LINDSEY, BRINK
FREE-TRADE NATIONALISM by Brink Lindsey FREE TRADE IS LOSING ITS GRIP on the conservative movement. In recent years a growing minority of conservatives, led by Patrick Buchanan, has swung to the...
...But to secure these advantages, free traders should first make their case at the national level...
...On the contrary, it allows a country’s citizens to enjoy the best goods and services the world has to offer, and to specialize in those pursuits at which they are relatively more productive...
...trade barriers as a matter of domestic economic policy— outside the context of any international negotiations and regardless of what other countries choose to do...
...Also, even when markets are opened unilaterally, converting those reforms into international obligations can guard against backsliding...
...dues, mixed in with grousing about know-nothing members of Congress who don’t even have passports...
...Furthermore, the direction of trade negotiations in recent years suggests a connection between free trade and the progressive diminution of U.S...
...If trade liberalization is part of a package deal that seemingly sacrifices America’s national economic interest and erodes its sovereignty in favor of some incipient world government, then thanks but no thanks...
...I believe there is...
...Less noticeably, others on the right who remain opposed to raising new trade barriers have grown disenchanted with trying to remove existing ones...
...After all, in trade talks countries agree to reduce their trade barriers only on the condition that other countries do likewise...
...Actually, most of the countries that have engaged in really sweeping free-trade reforms in recent years—countries like Chile and Argentina, Australia and New Zealand—have done so unilaterally...
...Modern conservatism has stood generally for the principle that America’s national economic interest lies in greater freedom...
...One explanation is that conservatives are being asked to choose between their nationalism and their free-market economics...
...Trade agreements can strengthen the political case for freer trade at home by adding the gains from freer trade abroad to the calculus...
...national economic interest...
...To that end, conservative free traders should urge the elimination of U.S...
...Of course, the equation of trade with war is economic nonsense...
...they restrict choices and drive up prices...
...Globalization must be distinguished from globalism...
...And it certainly has nothing to do with IMF bailouts or U.N...
...Free traders, by resisting such calls, get cast as “doves...
...We don’t need to play down obnoxious practices in the countries with which we sign deals...
...Free-trade nationalism, as strange as it may sound, provides the way out...
...Although six decades of contrary practice have muddled the issue, free trade is not fundamentally about international agreements or international institutions...
...Now that the Cold War has ended, though, it’s not surprising that a growing number of conservatives are ready to throw the free-trade baby out with the internationalist bath water...
...Fast track in particular tends to get lumped together with calls for additional IMF funding and paying back U.N...
...They are a tax on American economic health for the benefit of narrow interests that cannot possibly justify their special immunity to market discipline...
...It’s a false dilemma: The conflict arises not from the nature of free trade, but from the way it has been packaged and pursued...
...By increasing our commercial ties with Europe and Japan, trade agreements fortified the solidarity of the Western alliance...
...Interestingly, Mexico belongs on the list as well: Its unilateral market-opening moves in the late 1980s were far bolder than anything Mexico promised under NAFTA...
...A campaign for unilateral trade liberalization would allow conservatives to restore that principle’s proper application to trade policy...
...Free trade and conservatism are increasingly at odds, and it’s a conflict that threatens both causes...
...Indeed, more than anything else, a consistent and principled commitment to open markets on the part of the world’s largest and most prosperous economy would enhance the prospects of free trade around the world...
...Their position is that America is strong enough to “win” at international trade even with the deck stacked against us...
...And to enforce these increasingly ambitious agreements, new and more powerful international institutions—most notably, the World Trade Organization— have been created and empowered to pronounce judgment on national laws’ fidelity to international obligations...
...Is there any room left for international negotiations and institutions...
...Nevertheless, free traders have seldom challenged the protectionist misconceptions that trade talks encourage...
...support for trade liberalization continues to be sold as an obligation of American “international leadership...
...The polestar of trade policy ought always to be the American interest in free markets at home...
...Trade, unlike war, is not a zero-sum game: One country doesn’t “win” at another’s expense...
...The September 25 House vote on “fast track” trade-negotiating authority tells the story...
...In particular, openness to foreign competition is not a vulnerability...
...With the issue so framed, the military metaphors proliferate...
...national economic interest to broader concerns...
...national sovereignty...
...they blunt the forces of competition that promote productivity and rising standards of living...
...Thus, by the twisted logic of trade negotiations, free traders appear to be asking the United States to play by less favorable rules than other countries...
...By and large they accept the notion that the United States is somehow at a disadvantage because most of our trading partners maintain higher trade barriers than we do...
...Brink Lindsey is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the director of its Center for Trade Policy Studies...
...If free trade is to remain a viable conservative cause, it must be disentangled from its associations with internationalist altruism...
...After World War II, free trade was integrated into the larger strategy of containing Soviet communism...
...We don’t need to answer charges about the loss of sovereignty to faceless international bureaucrats...
...The fact that other countries have similar policies or worse is no reason for us to cling to our own folly...
...In the international arena, they saw open markets as a way of promoting peaceful relations in an increasingly hostile world...
...It’s not just that free traders have sold their cause on foreign-policy grounds...
...And the benefits of open markets accrue regardless of whether other countries maintain similarly liberal policies...
...Indeed, in the parlance of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, a commitment to reduce tariffs is a “concession...
...Why are conservatives running away from a cause that promotes tax cuts and deregulation...
...The scope of trade agreements has broadened far beyond simple tariff-cutting to encompass sweeping forays into traditional domestic-policy areas...
...The case for free trade should be grounded squarely in the U.S...
...markets unless foreign countries let in more American goods...
...Thus, trade barriers are treated like nuclear missiles in armscontrol talks—prized strategic assets that are given up only in exchange for foreign assets of equivalent value...
...In recent years a growing minority of conservatives, led by Patrick Buchanan, has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and embraced outright protectionism...
...In particular, efforts to “harmonize” national policies on labor and the environment are working their way onto negotiating agendas at both the regional and multilateral levels...
...In other words, protectionist countries have changed their policies in order to catch up economically with more open countries...
...All we need is to sound the traditional conservative themes of lower taxes and less government...
...The GOP leadership pushed for a vote before the midterm elections, claiming that Republicans would carry the measure even in the face of overwhelming Democratic opposition...
...And by opening our markets to Third World countries, we hoped to prevent defections to the Soviet camp...
...During the twilight struggle with communism, conservatives suppressed their normal nationalist sensibilities in deference to the greater cause...
...and anyway, they argue, broader geopolitical interests—countering Soviet power, and now maintaining some kind of nebulous “influence”—outweigh narrow commercial concerns...
...their aims were primarily diplomatic...
...What about encouraging freer trade in other countries...
...Rather, free trade is about freedom—freedom to trade, freedom to choose, freedom from import taxes and government regulation , freedom from subsidizing special interests...
...The driving force for reform in all these countries wasn’t tough bargaining or the prospect of a quid pro quo but rather the realization that protectionism was causing economic stagnation...
...They didn’t even come close: The bill went down 243-180, with roughly a third of the Republican caucus voting against the party line...
...Even many conservatives who know enough economics to reject Pat Buchanan’s full-throated protectionism are finding it ever harder to maintain allegiance to the free-trade agenda as currently constituted...
...Many conservative free traders are doubtless reluctant to abandon tried and true approaches for something as novel as unilateral free trade...
...But the fact is that what may have worked during the Cold War is no longer working...
...What’s happening here...
...We don’t need to make excuses for imperfect trade agreements...
...Trade “hawks” argue that our relatively open markets amount to “unilateral disarmament,” and they urge that we close off access to U.S...
...These trade barriers punish American businesses and consumers...
...It follows that the most important thing the United States can do to foster liberalization elsewhere is set a good example...
...The Cold War is over, but U.S...
...other New Dealers who pulled off this transformation did so not out of love for free markets generally...
...By promoting trade liberalization exclusively in the context of international negotiations, they have actually conveyed the impression that free trade requires the subordination of the U.S...
...We don’t need fast track or the WTO to pursue free trade here at home...
...ports, and foreign-ownership limits on airlines and broadcasting, to name a few...
...Such a campaign would have no shortage of inviting targets: high tariffs and restrictive quotas on food and clothing, the anti-competitive anti-dumping law, the Jones Act ban on foreign shipping between U.S...
...Don’t we need trade negotiations to pry open foreign markets...
...mission-creep...
Vol. 4 • November 1998 • No. 9
