Summoning the Ghosts of Smoot and Hawley

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/08/22/summoning-the-ghosts-of-smoot-and-hawley/ ^

[abc123alphabetagamma]

Members of the 110th Congress haven’t been shy about expressing their disdain for trade. No fewer than two dozen trade-related bills, almost all of which are antagonistic toward U.S. trade partners or outright protectionist, were introduced in the first seven months of this Congress. While some of those bills were crafted mostly for political effect, it is pretty clear that some hostile trade legislation will at least make it to the floors of both chambers this session or next. With Congress adjourned for August recess, here’s where things stand.

For all intents and purposes, the completed bilateral trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, Peru, and Panama have been shunted aside to consider, instead, enforcement-oriented legislation and the expansion of trade adjustment assistance legislation. Although House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel of New York has stated his intention to promote the Peru Agreement, it is doubtful that he will take to the task with much vigor or any success. His colleagues have different plans for trade policy.

[padre35]

From your article: "create a Chief Enforcement Officer at the USTR to identify, investigate, and prosecute cases where trade partners are not in compliance with their obligations; establish a panel of retired federal judges to review adverse WTO decisions, and to advise Congress on the efficacy of those decisions before any steps toward compliance are undertaken; eliminate presidential discretion to not impose tariffs or quotas recommended by U.S. International Trade Commission in so-called China Safeguard cases; eliminate presidential discretion to not apply the countervailing duty law to so-called non-market economies; lower the evidentiary threshold for finding “material injury” in antidumping cases, which would encourage the initiation of more antidumping cases" So what are the specific problems with these proposals?

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered? ... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for ...”

[Popocatapetl]

The CATO Institute lost a LOT of credibility when they embraced the idea that a business monopoly could not exist unless supported by government. Their willingness to see oligopolies as an acceptable market condition has set back by a decade or more much needed reforms.

Reforms such as the bust up of the media oligopoly and several others, such as the much of the shipping business, Microsoft and other high tech firms.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

“Free trade” is to these people, leaving your front door open in a high-crime neighborhood in the morning, then leaving for work.

Every month we lose, with our (massive) trade deficit with China alone, the equivalent of Valero Energy.

Every two months, a Hewlett Packard.

Gone. Along with the production capabilities, the jobs, the intellectual property and the profits.

FOR WHAT?

[BfloGuy]

The CATO Institute lost a LOT of credibility when they embraced the idea that a business monopoly could not exist unless supported by government.

You cite their position on monopolies (I agree with them) and then you go on to rail about something else. Microsoft, for example, is most certainly not without competition. Apple, Sun, Linux, etc. are all working to take more of the operating system market. Windows is still preferred by the vast majority of users.

I can see nothing wrong with that and I certainly don't want the government "reforming" it.