Former White House adviser Patrick J. Buchanan said yesterday that Texas Gov. George W. Bush is setting him up as chief foil in the race for the GOP Presidential nomination.
Buchanan said it's a position he welcomes — just as he did in 1996 when he won New Hampshire's leadoff Presidential primary, and in 1992, when he gave Bush's father, then-incumbent President George Bush, all he could handle.
Buchanan — "tailgating" Bush into the leadoff primary state as the front-runner departed for Massachusetts — said, "I think the fellow just invited me outside" by listing trade policy as a key campaign issue.
"I think we're going to step outside," Buchanan said in an interview, "and I relish the opportunity to debate him on what global free trade is doing to the American economy and the American worker."
Buchanan said whether he emerges as the leading conservative alternative to Bush will hinge on his showing in straw polls to be conducted by Granite State conservatives and the Iowa Republican Party later this summer and fund-raising, as reflected in campaign finance reports due out in less than a month.
Buchanan has focused much of his campaign this year and in 1996 on opposition to open trade, including NAFTA and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). He said such policies, also championed by President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, have led to a serious downturn in the American manufacturing sector and erosion of national sovereignty.
In New Hampshire on Monday, Bush said he would continue reduced trade tariffs for communist China by continuing its "most-favored nation" trading status.
Despite China's increased capacity in nuclear weaponry, "You can view China as a competitor without sacrificing the principles of free trade," Bush said.
Bush said he backs removing "all barriers to free trade" and believes China should be admitted to the World Trade Organization.
"It's important for our farmers and producers to have access to the Chinese market," Bush said, "And it is important for us to understand that with free trade comes the development of an entrepreneurial class in China."
But Bush said that if he were President, any items traded to China would "go through a very tight security screen. We must understand that the technologies we're trading could end up becoming part of a weapons system."
At the same time, he said, the U.S. should begin building an intermediate-range anti-ballistic missile program, which Bush called "a practical application of U.S. technology."
But Buchanan said that with most-favored nation status, China "got a $58 million trade surplus in hard currency last year that they're using for the greatest military build-up in Asia since the 1930s."
Buchanan said he would suspend Most Favored Nation status for a year and begin to impose on China "the same tariffs and taxes on their goods entering the United States that they impose on us. I would sit down with the Chinese leaders and tell them that if they don't stop building up these missiles targeted on our country and on Taiwan, they will have sold their last stuffed Panda bear at any mall in the United States of America."
While Buchanan decries a downturn in manufacturing and blames it on the trade policies of President Clinton and former President George Bush, the younger Bush sees nothing wrong.
"I've heard the rhetoric about the decline in manufacturing," the Texas governor said. "But in my state we've increased the number of jobs. Texas is one of the leading high-tech manufacturing states in the nation.
"There are some who had to get retrained in the new technologies," said Bush. "That's a commitment we need to make and begin to make with children entering kindergarten."
Bush said he drew 49 percent of the Hispanic vote in Texas in his last election, saying he opposes so-called "English-only" legislation.
"English is freedom," he said. "We want our children to learn to read and write in English. But in 'English-plus,' I respect other peoples' heritage. 'English-only' says, 'Me and not you.' 'English-plus' says, 'All of us.' "
Buchanan strongly advocates "English-only" be taught in schools.
Bush said that although he is pro-life, he would not ask U.S. Supreme Court judicial nominees to tell him their stand on abortion or whether Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, should be overturned.
Bush supports a constitutional amendment to ban abortion except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the life of the mother, but has said he would not seek to pass one as President because of a lack of public consensus.
Bush also has advocated steps to reduce the number of abortions — such as the Texas measure he recently signed into law requiring that minors receiving abortions notify their parents or another adult. Bush on Monday said, "You can agree on issues like banning partial birth abortions. You can agree on issues like parental notification. We should be able to agree on whether we should use taxpayers' money for abortion.
But Buchanan said that Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer to the high court "in the hard knowledge that they would uphold Roe v. Wade. And I will pick justices in the full knowledge that they will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
"Why in heaven's name would someone who deeply believes in the cause of life vote for someone who is not even going to ask about a judge's view on the most important decision since Dred Scott (a proslavery decision by the Supreme Court in 1857) in the history of this country?"
