New politics or same old?

If you want to see how far removed both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are from what Obama nebulously terms the “new politics”, take a look at their collective line on the North American Free Trade Agreement – NAFTA.

Negotiated by Mr Clinton in 1993, NAFTA remains one of the few enduring legacies of the charming and occasionally raunchy, but ultimately insubstantial Clinton years.

Of course if you believe that politicians and bureaucrats know better than the aggregate of millions of individual decisions which make up the free market, you will not support free trade. And there are many arguments against NAFTA, such as the poorer NAFTA countries such as Mexico do not “protect” their workers. But then if everyone had to have exactly the same labour and other regulations to be able to trade, the global economy would grind to a halt.

Hillary knows that.  In her memoirs, she trumpeted her husband’s “successes on NAFTA.” Only last year, her lead Wall Street fundraiser told reporters that Clinton remains “committed” to NAFTA’s “free” trade structure.

And Obama, scion of the “new politics” is playing the same game by vaguely promising to reform NAFTA - while quietly assuring business leaders he will do no such thing. For Obama knows that reforming NAFTA is neither possible nor desirable.

Both are pandering to people’s belief that their problems are down to someone else – preferably Mexicans, Canadians and Colombians who won’t be voting in these elections – rather than their own fault for guzzling too much food, gas and other goodies allied with poor education, which is one of the structural problems of the US economy.
 
It’s an easy sell. Americans are both insular and illiterate on economic matters. A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that even Republican voters believe by 2 to 1 that free trade is bad for the U.S. economy. In January, Fortune magazine found 68 percent believes other countries “are benefiting the most from free trade, not the U.S.”

In fact, it’s not only poorer Latin American countries which have benefited massively from the US’s belated opening to freer trade with its neighbours. But of course the US has done very well too, with a huge increase in employment since 1993 and no sign of the much predicted “giant sucking sound” as jobs and investment head south of the Rio Grande.

Clinton and Obama on NAFTA - new politics, or same old, same old? You decide.
Oh, I nearly forgot – only one candidate is brave enough to stick up for the benefits of NAFTA and free-trade: John McCain – he deserves election on those grounds alone.

Phillip Oppenheim