Free Republic

The big threat to Hillary Clinton’s campaign isn’t coming from a competitor. It’s coming from an issue. And it’s coming now, long before the first primary. Will she be for or against giving President Barack Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals? Fast track gives a president the power to make trade deals that cannot be amended by Congress. All Congress can do is accept or reject the agreement. Other countries, say fast-track supporters, won’t negotiate with Washington if they know that Congress can amend any deal they agree to. Obama’s problem is with Democrats. They are horrified by the...

If you want to hear the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal the Obama administration is hoping to pass, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door. If you’re a member who wants to read the text, you’ve got to go to a room in the basement of the Capitol Visitor Center and be handed it one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving. And no matter what, you...

Political debates often pit fear against hope, and when it comes to international trade agreements, many Democrats prefer to scare. It's a durable strategy that they can't relinquish -- even though it usually fails. If you're going to make a horror movie, you need a villain who can make your blood run cold. Despite endless efforts to pump this one up, the audience mostly yawns. Americans have gotten too used to the obvious benefits of trade to be terrified by German cars, Canadian oil or Chinese toys. The Obama administration is currently negotiating with 11 other nations on a Trans-Pacific...

Mexico's federal government may limit the amount of debt and the size of deficits that states and municipalities accumulate, as local debt levels have doubled in recent years and a handful of governments have defaulted on debt payments. The proposal is tricky to maneuver because Mexican states are independent federal entities, complete with their own constitutions, and as such they may tap as much nonguaranteed debt as they like. The states do require congressional approval to issue long-term debt backed by their shares of federal tax revenue. Local Mexican governments have limited independent revenue sources, relying instead on transfers from...

While WWII raged in 1944, 44 delegations met to create a world currency, bank, and trade organization. They fell short of that goal, but what will happen this time?   Even by the rarefied standards of wealthy New Englanders, the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, is a luxurious retreat. Built in 1902 by 250 skilled artisans for the then-princely sum of $1.7 million, the sprawling Spanish Renaissance-style resort, nestled in the shadow of Mount Washington, the northeast's highest peak, has long been a favorite of celebrities and presidents. But even the man who built it, industrialist Joseph Stickney,...

Hong Kong This tiny outpost of radical thinking is an excellent vantage point for the recent collapse of the multilateral trade negotiations. Hong Kong is essentially irrelevant to trade talks because it practices unilateral free trade, with virtually no tariffs or other barriers. People here understand that imports, exports and the rigors of comparative advantage create individual opportunity and wealth. Enough, in Hong Kong's case, for it to have evolved under almost pure free trade from a rocky harbor into one of the wealthiest places on earth. But don't some industries in Hong Kong seek government protection? Don't some bureaucrats...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

North American Union to Get Firmed Up in Secrecy at Meeting in Canada "Information is the currency of democracy." Thomas Jefferson American citizens have learned of some secretive groups in the country which are given great autonomy. Some are authorized by our government, but have little oversight, and some have not been authorized by our government, but seize authority just because they can. One example of this is the secretive CFIUS, Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. When the plans to turn over operation of six ports to Dubai Ports World became public, (with no thanks to the...

APPARENTLY Wal-Mart doesn't just bring new business to foriegn countries; it also brings new business culture. A new NBER paper by Beata Smarzynska Javorcik, Wolfgang Keller, and James Tybout looks at how the Mexican soap, detergent, and surfactants ("SDS") industry fared under NAFTA and GATT. They found that the industry experienced gains in productivity and acquired a greater share of the US market—about what you would expect from opening markets. What was unexpected was that the benefits didn't just come from lower costs of trade and the exposure to competition from foreign producers. In fact, the biggest gains came from...

WASHINGTON - U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab welcomed Mexico’s revocation of antidumping duties on U.S. long grain white rice. Mexico took this action after the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed with the United States that the duties were contrary to WTO rules. "We are pleased that Mexico has revoked the antidumping duties on U.S. rice," said Ambassador Schwab. "We thought the duties were inconsistent with WTO rules, and the WTO agreed. Mexico was the largest export market for U.S. rice in 2005. The action by Mexico is a great result for U.S. rice farmers, and another example of...

Although most provisions of the current U.S. farm bill won't expire until September 2007, a group of senators recently proposed extending it until after the Doha Round of global trade negotiations is complete. Extending the farm bill -- damaging though it is -- will "send a signal to our trading partners," says one of the legislation's sponsors. It certainly will. At a time when leadership in the global trade talks is sadly lacking and desperately needed, the signal will be a big fat raspberry. An extension will also delay for yet another year the opportunity to reform a policy that...

Next time you're in a bottleneck on Interstate 35 and want to cuss someone, consider this: Those most responsible probably aren't within earshot. They include former President Clinton, whose signing of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement paved the way for a surge in truck traffic; Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, who helped convince then-Gov. Ann Richards to pull support for high-speed rail plans; and Ric Williamson, who as a member of the state House Appropriations Committee in the 1980s played a key role in diverting state gas taxes, a third of which now don't go to transportation. Such...

The New GOP Betrays America Diane Alden Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005 The biblical truth "Hope deferred makes the heart sick" described my state of mind on July 27, 2005. That was when the House Republican leadership stopped the clock on the CAFTA vote because they didn't like the way it was going. It gets more and more difficult to write about politics. The hope some of us placed in Republicans was misplaced. We had hope they might make a small attempt to lead this nation back to constitutional government: limited government. Hoping Republicans will be conservative, constitutional or less venal...

Two years ago, our tireless troubadour of globalism, the Wall Street Journal, was beside itself with giddiness and excitement. "A Free Trade Majority" is born, said the Journal, hailing as midwife Nancy Pelosi for leading a third of all House Democrats behind free-trade pacts with Chile and Singapore. The Journal mocked the 27 GOP dissidents as union poodles, Northeast liberals, textile-state reactionaries and "protectionists of the Pat Buchanan stripe [who] could fit into a phone booth." Well, something is slouching toward Washington to be born, all right. But it does not appear to be a free trade majority. Here is...

The "unConstitutional" Transfer of Powerand the Nullification Party an American Patriot July 30, 2005       On July 28, 2005 in "A "Treaty" by any other name is still a "TREATY," I questioned the constitutionality of the President entering an "agreement" without the 2/3rds vote of the Senate under Article II or the power of the President to introduce legislation to "regulate commerce" to Congress under Article I which vests that power to Congress.       I have since learned that CAFTA "legislation" was introduced under the Presidents "fast track authority." Since 1974, Presidents have used "fast-track authority" to negotiate foreign...

The June payroll jobs report did not receive much attention due to the July 4 holiday, but the depressing 21st century job performance of the U.S. economy continues unabated. Only 144,000 private sector jobs were created, each one of which was in domestic services. Fifty-six thousand jobs were created in professional and business services, about half of which are in administrative and waste services. Thirty-eight thousand jobs were created in education and health services, almost all of which are in health care and social assistance. Nineteen thousand jobs were created in leisure and hospitality, almost all of which are waitresses...

WASHINGTON - The House narrowly approved the Central American Free Trade Agreement early Thursday, a personal triumph for President Bush, who campaigned aggressively for the accord he said would foster prosperity and democracy in the hemisphere. The 217-215 vote just after midnight adds six Latin American countries to the growing lists of nations with free trade agreements with the United States and averts what could have been a major political embarrassment for the Bush administration. It was an uphill effort to win a majority, with Bush traveling to Capitol Hill earlier in the day to appeal to wavering Republicans to...

Washington, DC – “Buy American” laws and similar state and federal legislation would be gutted by CAFTA procurement rules that prohibit all laws that give a preference to domestic or local businesses according to U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood, who says CAFTA Article 9 overturns every state and federal law that requires federal, state, and local government agencies to buy American products, or use American workforces. CAFTA Article 9.2. No Party (Nation) may treat a locally established supplier any less favorably than another locally established supplier on the basis of degree of foreign affiliation or ownership, or …on the basis that...

India is likely to open its market for quota-and duty-free access of LDC products before the coming WTO ministerial meet slated for December 13-18 in Hong Kong, in compliance of international trade rules, reports UNB. The Indian side gave the hint at the fifth WTO mini-ministerial meeting in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian, according to message received in Dhaka on Thursday. The three-day meeting concluded today (Thursday). Bangladesh at the July 12-14 Dalian round of talks strongly demanded of the developing and advanced developing counties to provide quota-and duty-free access of agriculture and non-agriculture products of the least developed...

TWIN FALLS, Idaho -- "CAFTA is NAFTA on steroids," said Kent Snyder, executive director of The Liberty Committee, a group whose motto is "Political Action From Principle." Affiliated with congressional representative Ron Paul, R-Texas -- who also opposes the Central American Free Trade Agreement-Dominican Republic -- the committee holds that CAFTA-DR, like the decade-old North American Free Trade Agreement isn't really about true free trade; it's about global managed trade. "Think about it," Snyder said. "Why does it take over 1,000 pages to define free trade?" In administrative works for several years CAFTA would create a NAFTA-like free trade zone...