Posted on 03/10/2002 11:25:43 PM PST by duck soup
ABOUT a month ago in these pages, I had cause to complain about the headline appended to my review of George W Bush's first year: "My, How You've Grown".
I pointed out that, as I've always regarded the President as a colossus who bestrides the planet, he could hardly grow any more in my eyes. Well, if the Executive Editor (Headlines) is short of inspiration this weekend, feel free to use my suggestion: My, How You've Shrunk.
Last Tuesday was the absolute low point of the Bush presidency. Even in the wobblier moments of September 11 and 12, he never said or did anything flat-out, stinking-to-high-heaven wrong. But last week he slapped tariffs of 30 per cent on imported steel.
Canada and Mexico are exempt, because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and so are selected developing countries, beneficiaries of the new Bush Doctrine of "compassionate protectionism".
But among those stiffed by the President are pretty much everybody with troops on the ground fighting alongside the 10th Mountain Division and the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan - fellows like Australia, whose Prime Minister, John Howard, summed up his country's support for the US better than anyone else in the days after September 11: "This is no time to be an 80 per cent ally." No, indeed. Bush to Howard: You're now a 30 per cent ally.
Presumably, the Administration figures it can afford to slough off the Aussies. But this decision also flips the finger at the only two allies who really matter, Britain and Russia. Steel is important to Moscow, and it may yet prove significant in whether or not Tony Blair can bring his party with him on Iraq. But to hell with Blair, it also stiffs me.
I look outside at the impressive fleet of luxury Sports Utility Vehicles and rugged trucks parked in my yard and start musing on the replacement costs. Bush's "protectionist" measures will apparently add about $1 billion annually to the cost of buying cars and trucks.
Not for me, for the whole country, but even so: every American should wander round the house and take a look at how much stuff has got steel in it; George W Bush has just made all those things more expensive, and their manufacturers less competitive.
Whoever he's "protecting", it isn't the American people: for every steel-producing job these tariffs save, they'll cost 10 jobs in the steel-consuming sector. So, if it's any consolation to my conservative chums in Britain, the bastard's not doing anything for Americans with this decision either.
I wouldn't mind what's effectively the introduction of a covert sales tax: there's a war on and we must all make sacrifices. The problem is that this particular sales tax undermines the war effort - or, at any rate, the moral basis for it.
In the autumn, with America fretting over the economic consequences of September 11, the President declared that the attack on New York was an attack on "free trade". "We will keep our country open," he insisted, "and our markets open for business."
Well said. A couple of years back, I found myself in conversation with, ahem, a senior member of the Royal Family who opined that it was just awful that Rolls-Royce had been swallowed by Volkswagen. I like being an oleaginous royal suck-up as much as the next guy, but this was too much.
I replied that one of the refreshing aspects of US capitalism was its open-mindedness: when Daimler takes over Chrysler - manufacturers of the Jeep - Americans don't go around whining about the loss of this powerful national symbol and why doesn't the government intervene.
If you can make it, ship it and sell it, the American market is yours for the taking. As the Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill said, barely a week ago: "Freer trade can help stimulate growth: it fuels competition, and innovation."
But it doesn't stop there. Giving the rest of the planet access to G7 markets is the best way not only to improve the living standards of the world's poor, but also to bring them within the purview of civilised (or anyway non-deranged) nations.
Lest anyone doubt the relevance of this, consider that 50 years ago Egypt and South Korea had more or less identical per capita incomes. Today, Egypt's is less than 20 per cent of South Korea's. This isn't the leftie's lamebrain poverty-breeds-resentment argument: the fact that Egypt is a fetid backwater is nobody's fault but the Egyptians'.
South Korea, on the other hand, has transformed itself, and is a significant exporter of cheap steel to grateful American manufacturers. So Bush has chosen to penalise the Koreans - to blame the chronic sickness of the US steel industry on the foreign steel industry.
Scapegoating breeds resentment, and so it should. Free trade is the mitigating circumstance of America's unprecedented global hegemony: it says, "Yes, we're a behemoth never before seen in the history of the world, but you can grab a piece of that. We're loaded, sell us something."
Take that away and what you're left with is perilously close to the global bully The Guardian and the Euroweenies drone on about. If you're a Saudi loser who'd rather hole up in Tora Bora than put in a decent day's work, we'll drop a Daisycutter on you. But, if you're a wiry little Korean slogging away in the factory all week, we'll still screw you over.
Most Presidents get to pick their priorities. After September 11, Bush had no choice in his. But, six months on, it's increasingly clear that, on the non-war fronts the Bush presidency has died. His much-vaunted education bill was gutted by Ted Kennedy of anything meaningful.
On "campaign finance reform" - a racket Bush once dismissed as "unconstitutional" - he seems to lack the will to resist. And last Tuesday he pulled off the remarkable feat of making Bill Clinton look principled. With hindsight, Clinton had two bedrock convictions: he believed oral sex didn't qualify as adultery and he believed in free trade.
Bush, by contrast, thinks a little bit of union featherbedding doesn't count as political adultery, and will swing enough votes among the Red Robbos of the Appalachians to make the difference. Don't bet on it. Protectionism breeds ingrates.
By November, some pandering West Virginia Democrat will be agitating for 40 per cent tariffs. In 2004, Bush will win or lose for reasons entirely unconnected with an irrelevant, dying industry.
But, in the meantime, some of us conservatives are wondering: if he weren't slaughtering Islamofascist nutters in the Hindu Kush, why exactly would we support this guy? The sooner the invasion of Iraq starts, the better.
. . .Islamofascist 'nutters' in the Hindu Kush. . .cheap tactic of diminishing this enemy to a caricature of sorts; but works well to diminish the President without having to 'go there'. . .
As for GW, losing a fan; suspect Mark Steyn was never a devoted one. . .
It's almost as if our elected political hires have become rock stars or some baseball icon.
One should beware of becoming a "fan" of a politician or a political party.
Underneath it all, politicians of all stripes are self absorbed creatures with enormous egos...
At least with an income tax the government doesn't tell me where I what I can buy.
I think your disposal income after taxes is what governs what you buy.
Why yes, if such tariffs are in America's best interest.
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