Free trade came up in the McCain/Obama debate Wednesday night. Stephen Spruiell argues this important matter does not get the attention it deserves. It is incredible that Obama and the Democratic Congress have refused to approve the free trade agreement with Colombia, our closest ally in Latin America. McCain said it was an unconscionable position. Obama claimed Colombia was killing union officials. Not true. Obama follows the line of the unions that all free trade agreements are bad in defiance of all evidence and the near universal statements of economists.
Obama opposes the Colombia deal because organized labor opposes it, and his fealty to the AFL-CIO on that and every other issue should be causing more concern than it is. Whether workers will retain the right to a secret ballot in union elections is a question that the next president will almost certainly decide, and Obama has already come out in favor of taking that right away.Americans are on the verge of electing the most anti-trade, pro-union candidate of the last three decades, but these issues have received scant attention compared to Obama’s tax plan. Obama’s redistributionist approach to taxes is important to highlight, but his protectionism is also a form of redistribution: It would force consumers to pay higher prices for certain goods in order to benefit favored domestic industries. Joe the Plumber was the star of Wednesday night’s debate, but tax policy is not the only way Barack Obama seeks to “spread the wealth.”
We reported in July on Democratic Speaker of the House Pelosi twisting House rules to prevent a required up-or-down vote on the Colombia free trade agreement from taking place. Michael Barone termed her action the most shameful act of the current Congress. It remains so, for Pelosi, the Democratic Congress and Obama.
HIstory has shown that protectionism is a recipe for disaster. Even the Democrat economist Paul Krugman in his sane days said, "A country serves its own interests by pursuing free trade regardless of what other countries may do.”
