Cf. "The Pew Global Attitudes Project is chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and directed by Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press" (at <http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/0602-05.htm>). The survey's "findings," in my opinion, tell us more about which political party in the USA is the party of orthodox neoliberalism than about the attitudes of multitudes toward the old Washington Consensus which has been mislabeled "free trade": the Democratic Party.
>The point I was trying to make is that the widespread "left"
>atttitude towards trade and "globalization" is marginal,
>reactionary, and doomed. If you're trying to argue that autarky is
>somehow revolutionary, or potentially so, you're in need of a
>serious rethink.
>
>Doug
What's doomed is the old Washington Consensus (= free trade for the poor, protectionism for the rich) -- doomed by its own excess:
***** washingtonpost.com New Doubts About Bush Trade Agenda By Paul Blustein Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, November 22, 2003; Page E01
MIAMI, Nov. 21 -- Another high-level trade meeting has ended, the topic being the establishment of a Western hemisphere free-trade zone, and this time the participating officials signed a declaration instead of storming out in acrimony.
But they avoided a breakdown only by agreeing to a pale version of their original goal. That is just the latest sign that President Bush's free-trade agenda is in serious danger of slipping into reverse as next year's national elections loom. . . .
The global talks, originally set to finish in early 2005, were thrown badly off track two months ago when a World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, Mexico, collapsed amid a rebellion by developing countries, whose representatives complained that the United States and other rich nations were not sufficiently willing to open their markets to agricultural goods or reduce subsidies for their farmers.
Hard on the heels of that debacle came a sharp escalation in trade tensions between Washington and the European Union, along with several other steel exporters, when a WTO panel decreed earlier this month that the steel tariffs Bush imposed in 2002 violate international trade rules. The specter of a trade war, or at least a damaging fusillade, emerged as the EU threatened to impose retaliatory duties on a host of U.S. exports unless Bush revokes the steel tariffs, a move the president is loath to take for fear of alienating voters in battleground rust-belt states.
A similar prospect of tit-for-tat retaliation with China arose Tuesday when the administration imposed quotas capping the rapid growth in imports of Chinese bras, dressing gowns and knit fabric; and Beijing promptly suggested that it would join the EU in exercising its rights to levy duties on American goods in the steel case.
All this is spurring speculation that, amid widespread public discontent over jobs lost to foreign competition, Bush's commitment to opening markets is flagging -- with the most prominent commentary coming from Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan. Without naming any country or action in particular, Greenspan warned Thursday that "some clouds of creeping protectionism have become increasingly visible on today's horizon."
Administration officials dispute suggestions of any wavering on the trade issue. "This president takes a second seat to nobody in getting free trade," Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans said in an interview. "If we can't move some agreements as fast or comprehensively as we would like, we're not slowing down. We're still moving forward." He cited recent announcements that the administration is seeking bilateral free-trade deals with the Dominican Republic, Panama, the Andean nations and Australia.
But there's the rub, according to critics of the administration's approach.
The countries with which Washington is seeking bilateral accords account for just a little over 6 percent of U.S. exports. So such deals offer little by comparison with the global negotiations, or even with the FTAA, the proposed Western hemisphere pact. Although Zoellick and his Latin American counterparts claimed at their closing press conference Thursday that this week's meeting gave the FTAA new momentum, their vaguely worded declaration glossed over major differences, and it envisioned a much less ambitious accord than the North American Free Trade Agreement, with countries allowed to opt out of portions they do not like. . . .
It is far from clear, moreover, whether the White House will be able to win congressional approval in coming months for its proposed bilateral free-trade deals, especially controversial ones like an accord currently being negotiated with five Central American countries.
Partly for that reason, officials of countries that have been resisting Washington's pressure to open markets, notably Brazil, shrug off worries that U.S. deals with their neighbors will deprive them of vital access to the American market.
"I don't think the United States is signing these agreements to put pressure on Brazil, but if it were to put pressure on Brazil, it would be a waste of time," said Celso Amorim, the country's foreign minister.
He added, in a barbed reference to the Bush administration's departures from free-market orthodoxy: "Free trade is important. But it's more talked about than practiced."
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5204-2003Nov21.html> *****
***** washingtonpost.com Dimming Hopes for Free Trade Sunday, November 23, 2003; Page F02
It was probably inevitable, after a decade of dramatic growth in world trade, that the onset of a global slowdown would invite a pullback from freer trade. Growing economies tend to camouflage the dislocations caused by trade, while stagnant economies highlight them, creating a political climate for protectionism.
Up to now, the Bush administration has tried to finesse the problem through modest, tactical retreats from an otherwise ambitious free-trade agenda. But some of these concessions have begun to generate tit-for-tat responses from unhappy trading partners that could eventually turn into trade wars.
Those temporary steel tariffs, for example, threaten to trigger billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs against U.S. products by Europe, Japan and Brazil, because the World Trade Organization has declared them illegal. Even Tony Blair, President Bush's staunchest ally, rejected an attempt to work out some sort of compromise that would fall short of removing the steel tariffs entirely.
The administration also responded to mounting pressure to do something about the surge in textile imports from China by imposing temporary tariffs on brassieres, bathrobes and knitwear. The announcement drew a quick and angry response from Beijing, where Chinese leaders apparently felt somewhat betrayed after having just agreed to put in a big new order for U.S.-made automobile parts and Boeing jets. They summoned the U.S. ambassador for a stern lecture, threatened retaliatory tariffs and postponed sending a delegation to Washington to ink a purchase of more U.S. agricultural products.
In Miami, meanwhile, hopes dimmed for extending the area covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement to the rest of the Western Hemisphere after the two leading countries, the United States and Brazil, were unable to work themselves out of a negotiating stalemate -- largely over U.S. agricultural barriers and subsidies. Instead, the United States will have to be content with a much more modest agenda, with more significant progress to be made in separate, bilateral talks with some of the less developed, and more willing, countries of Central and South America.
Surveying the growing tensions, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned in a speech that this "creeping protectionism" -- and its threat to free flows of goods and capital -- poses a particular challenge to the nation because of its $500 billion-a-year current account deficit. The same thought apparently occurred to global currency traders, who continued to sell down the dollar to some of the lowest levels in years.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5615-2003Nov22.html> ***** -- Yoshie
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