Views » February 22, 2008 » Web Only

A Trade Transformation

By David Sirota

When it came to sex, Bill Clinton made us debate the definition of “is.” Now, when it comes to economics, Hillary Clinton wants to debate the definition of “long,” claiming this week in Ohio that “I’ve long been a critic of the shortcomings of NAFTA.”

True, Clinton has recently criticized NAFTA — the 1993 trade policy whose lack of labor and environmental protections encourages companies to move American jobs overseas. But cheap campaign rhetoric over a few months does not make one a longtime critic — especially considering the record.

During Clinton’s 1996 visit to Texas, United Press International reported that she “touted the president’s support for NAFTA.” In her memoir, Clinton trumpeted her husband’s “successes on the budget, the Brady bill and NAFTA.” The Buffalo News reports that in 1998 she “praised corporations for mounting ‘a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA.’” And last year, her lead Wall Street fundraiser told reporters that Clinton remains “committed” to NAFTA’s “free” trade structure.

Clinton’s attempt to hide this history emulates a principle pioneered by George W. Bush in this, the age of stenographic journalism. As he made his unsubstantiated case for war, Bush proved that the media are willing to present politicians’ lies as fact. Clinton simply figures that if she says she has “long been a critic” of NAFTA, then the assertion will be transcribed as truth.

That said, her U-turn is about more than dishonesty — it is about the public will.

Back when Clinton was the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, she wasn’t saying much about trade. And in amassing her much-vaunted “experience” in Congress, she never led a fight to reform NAFTA. But now that she is in a competitive nomination contest, Clinton has to try to make her record palatable to voters rather than to corporate lobbyists — and that means reflecting America’s understandable anger.

A September NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found 59 percent of the country believes existing trade policy “has been bad for the U.S. economy.” In January, Fortune found 68 percent believes other countries “are benefiting the most from free trade, not the U.S.” Exit polls in 2004 showed 70 percent of Ohio Democratic voters blamed trade policies for job losses, and those numbers could be even higher in the state’s March 4 primary.

Shrewdly, Barack Obama is promising to transform trade policies so that they do not encourage outsourcing. He is also reminding voters of Clinton’s support for NAFTA. The two-pronged message, while belated, perfectly illustrates the difference between “change” and “more of the same” — and not just in the primary.

The Illinois senator says he wants to win back blue-collar “Reagan Democrats” in the general election. His populism on trade will help.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that “by a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy.” Similarly, a Democracy Corps poll showed that unfair trade policy was the top concern of self-described Republicans who considered casting a Democratic vote in 2006. Against NAFTA cheerleader John McCain (R), Obama’s fair trade position can win over these disillusioned voters.

The media will be the big obstacle. Though the public wants reform and BusinessWeek reports that economists are reconsidering their support of NAFTA-style trade deals, the Washington punditburo has long worshiped the status quo on this issue.

When NAFTA was originally debated and polls showed the country divided over its passage, the Washington Post’s editorial page editor Meg Greenfield justified her refusal to publish anti-NAFTA commentary by saying that “columnists of the left, right and middle are all in agreement” in support of the deal. Today, that Orwellian blackout has mutated into an onslaught, with the Post’s editorial board lambasting Obama for his fair trade rhetoric.

But as Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told The Nation, the naysaying should be ignored. Brown said the media attacked him for opposing NAFTA, “And so what? I won by well into double-digits, in a slightly Republican state, against an incumbent.”

If Obama heeds that advice, neither Clintonian obfuscation nor media vitriol can stop him. He will be on his way to victory and, more importantly, to building a real mandate — one that will finally force Washington to fix America’s broken trade policy.

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• Reader Comments

  Ross Perot saw this coming and so did I. He got my vote because of this one issue and his being the one candidate with enough imagination to be concerned. (To be fair, perhaps others also saw it, but were more concerned with electability and realized people don’t want to hear bad news.)

  My life as a graphic artist and designer required a good imagination. While it is a gift that enables one to take what doesn’t yet exist, ask “What if?” and by-pass the least favorable ideas while choosing the better — that ability is also a curse — since it causes early and continued worry as the future results of poor choices become clear.

  While I feared the loss of U.S. business (My client base was 95% manufacturing companies.) I thought it would take far longer than it did and that by adapting to digital technology, I could survive it until my retirement.

  I didn’t exactly retire — I stayed to turn out the lights when my last good customer moved out. (And began spending my retirement savings a bit early.)

  Our city of 150,000 rapidly lost over 10,000 manufacturing jobs as long time employers either shifted production to cheap labor, went out of business or sold to larger corporations which absorb their client list and spit out the people and local facilities. (If anyone knows an economical way to plow under hundreds of thousands of brick and mortar, we could make a bunch in the soil bank.)

  The question is not whether free trade is good or bad for the U.S.  The question is:  Will we ever truly try it?

  While our companies are carrying the load of all those good things which took decades to gain — child labor laws, retirement and health benefits, safety protection, quality controls, environmental concerns…  our foreign competitors are favored with our jobs.

  Has it occurred to anyone watching the Fed’s Kabuki, played out in Washington and on TV, just how much tinkering of the controls is required to operate these “free markets”?

  Posted by whattheheck on Feb 29, 2008 at 3:27 PM

  A Gallup poll in seventeenth century London once proclaimed: “Peasants mourn passage of Idyllic, Bucolic and Pastoral Age.  Demand return to Famine, Pestilence, Ignorance and Oppression by King and Clergy.  Enlightened Aristocracy predicts that Industrial Revolution and Colonial Imperialism will produce Utopic Material Paradise for middle-class Europeans whose descendants survive transition to Modern Democratic Age.”

  Posted by Major Major on Feb 29, 2008 at 8:31 PM

  Major,

  Good one.

  Posted by whattheheck on Mar 1, 2008 at 2:59 PM

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