Fast Track Authority

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Sep 9 08:05:38 PDT 1998


Brad De Long wrote:


>Why is anyone opposed to concluding a free-trade agreement with Chile?
>
>It's a country that has had a miserable time over the past thirty
>years--made much more miserable by Henry Kissinger's ideas about how to run
>foreign policy. It's ten million people seven thousand miles away who might
>actually benefit from better access to the U.S. market...

What meaningful obstruction is there in the way of Chilean goods entering the U.S. market? A few pennies tariff differential? The point of these free trade agreements is mostly political, not economic: to tie the southern exporters to their northern patrons in a way pleasing to MNCs, and to limit the range of options available to future southern governments.

Doug



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