When Bill Clinton called a special session of Congress in 1994 to win
approval of his giant General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT)
treaty, one feature in particular of that trade deal stuck in the
craw of conservatives.
Clinton had yielded U.S. sovereignty to a world court of trade, the
World Trade Organization, where for the first time America submitted
to a one-nation, one-vote formula -- and surrendered its veto power.
In the WTO, the United States has the same voting power as Ecuador.
Populists were outraged that their country had been dragooned into a
United Nations of world trade. Constitutionalists were appalled.
Why did Congress not simply kill that one feature of GATT? Because
Congress had surrendered its constitutional right to do so! When it
agreed to "fast track" in 1974, Congress gave up its right to amend
trade treaties. Future congresses were restricted to voting "yes" or
"no" on whatever deal a president brought home.
After 1994, however, Clinton's fast-track authority expired, and
Congress regained its authority to amend trade treaties. Yet,
amazingly, Clinton is again demanding that Congress surrender this
right, and conservatives are anxious to accommodate him.
Why, after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) disaster,
would a GOP Congress agree to rubber-stamp the next Clinton trade
deal? Because Republicans are blind to the realities of the new global
economy, where imported manufactures equal more than 50 percent of
U.S. production, where U.S. merchandise trade deficits are approaching
$200 billion, where trade treaties can cost a party a presidential
election.
Can Republicans not see how the world has changed? Trade is
no longer the stuff of bipartisan consensus. Trade and sovereignty are
the issues on which the politics of America and Europe are being
reshaped and conservative parties smashed to pieces. For Congress to
yield, in advance, its right to amend trade treaties is to leave the
GOP's future in the hands of Clinton and his trade negotiators.
Clinton knows this! In the White House speech-writing shop, the term
"NAFTA expansion" -- what fast track is all about -- is banned; the
term fast track itself is being replaced by "Renewal of Traditional
Trading Authority." As The Washington Post reports: "(I)f they can
redefine the lingo, administration officials figure, they may erase
some of the imagery associated with Clinton's plan, making it more
salable to the public and ... Congress."
Translation: Bill Clinton is putting a new label on the political rat
poison he wants Republicans to swallow. Indeed, he has to. For while
Republicans may still consider themselves proud papas of NAFTA, to
Middle America, NAFTA has come to mean narcotics from Mexican cartels
pouring into U.S. cities, manufacturing plants shutting down, jobs
going south, illegal immigrants pouring north, $50 billion bailouts
at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, and schoolkids getting sick on
NAFTA-berries.
The NAFTA lobby routinely trots out its all-purpose excuse. This
isn't the fault of NAFTA, they say, but of a peso devaluation no one
could foresee. But many did see devaluation coming, Ross Perot among
them. And currency manipulations have become a favorite scam of
regimes seeking to export their way to prosperity at our expense. Like
Mexico, the nations of Southeast Asia are right now devaluing their
currencies to cut imports and increase exports to the U.S.A.
What are foreign countries doing with the mountains of dollars from
their U.S. trade surpluses? Buying U.S. Treasury bonds and T-bills so
American taxpayers will be forever transferring billions in annual
interest into their vaults.
As of April, our "trading partners" held
$1.215 trillion -- more than twelve hundred billion dollars -- in
Treasury securities. Japan alone held $300 billion; China and the
Asian "tigers" $172 billion; OPEC $53 billion; Canada-Mexico $44
billion. So vulnerable has the United States become that when Prime
Minister Hashimoto hinted he might dump Japan's hoard onto the market,
the Dow-Jones Industrial Average had a near-death experience.
If Congress grants Clinton fast-track authority to expand NAFTA, it
will raise a question: What exactly is Congress for? It has
surrendered the power to make war to the president and its power over
social issues -- abortion, quotas, education -- to the Supreme Court.
If Congress doesn't do trade, what does it do? Whether pro-NAFTA or
anti-NAFTA, free trader or economic nationalist, why would
Republicans unilaterally surrender their right to amend trade
treaties to Clinton-Gore, when those treaties could mean the
difference between defeat and victory in 2000?
Can it be that John Stuart Mill was right when he called the Tories
"the Stupid Party"? We shall see.
