Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Democrats reinforcing ignorance on trade

Here's a link to the Register's editorial about the House Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, embracing benightedness on trade by refusing even to consider the Colombia trade agreement. It's not that the agreement is a perfect one, or that bilateral trade agreements like this one are necessarily the best way to get to free trade. But the Dems are trading on and reinforcing sheer ignorance and the tendency to blame furriners for problems they have little or nothing to do with. Not only would this agreement not have destroyed American jobs, it would likely have increased them, since U.S. tariffs for Colombian imports are already near zero, and the impact of this agreement would have been to reduce Colombian tariffs on imports from the U.S., which are at about 35%. Furthermore, trade, especially with Colombia, has almost nothing to do with problems in the Rust Belt. Changing technology is far more significant, along with regulations that deter innovation. Democrats used to be internationalists but now they're xenophopes.

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