[.cnI redruM]

Protectionism doesn't make anyone safer. It's also a terrible piece of electoral pork.

[luckydevi]

When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will.
--Frederic Bastiat

[sixmil]

As Cato Institute trade-policy analyst Dan Ikenson explains, under a $9.5 million program, the U.S. Customs Service (now part of DHS) assigns agents to the Textile Production Verification Team (TPVT). They travel the world inspecting textile factories and corporate "books and records in order to verify the country of origin or the eligibility for a trade preference" for various garments. Imagine that a Chinese sweater maker ran into a filled U.S. import quota, then transported those goods to Hanoi, relabeled them as Vietnamese and shipped them to Seattle from there. The ever-vigilant TPVT would unravel that scheme.

It would be a lot simpler to just collect tariffs at the border, but instead we get the big gov't non-solution, which gives dems and repubs more stuff to waste time debating on.

[sixmil]

Rumsfeld and Powell ought to explain to Evans and Rove how Bush's reelection-driven trade policies too often jeopardize U.S. national security. To satisfy parochial domestic interests, Bush's neo-protectionism creates headaches for American soldiers and diplomats abroad. This counterproductive shortsightedness cannot stop soon enough.

If Bush is a protectionist, then we'll have to invent a new superlative for the founding fathers.