Will There Really Be A Change on Trade?

The Chicago Tribune [1] publishes an overview of the debate over trade, evaluating whether the Democratic presidential candidates are serious about their fair trade rhetoric. While the article is encouraging in that it at least covers the issue, its contours show the big obstacles we still face in this debate, despite the fact that polls [2] show the vast majority of Americans want a change.

For instance, check out the disgust some fellow Democrats and their K Street cronies in Washington have for the concept of fair trade:

"I don't know if they're really serious about going back and redoing NAFTA," said Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the House majority leader. Hoyer supports increased trade, as does Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the House Democratic Caucus chairman. Emanuel notes that both Clinton and Obama backed a recent trade deal with Peru. "That's all I have to say," he said.

Emanuel is factually correct that the two candidates did support the NAFTA-style Peru agreement. It is his flippant, seemingly psyched attitude that really shines through hear. Emanuel has long been known as one of the most loyal corporate manservants in Washington, D.C. - a guy who just last year gushed to newspapers about his efforts to shakedown cash from banks and the "distressed debt" industry [2] that was in the process of manufacturing the financial crisis we now are living through. Though he has a reputation for "toughness," that very word - "toughness" - is Washington, D.C. code for corrupt corporate power-worshipper. That's how he's made his career - riding the culture of corruption for his own career, first as the White House staffer pushing NAFTA, then as an investment banker, then as a congressional candidate buying a Chicago House seat, now as a lawmaker laughing off the majority of Americans who want a change in our trade policy.

And as the Tribune article shows, Emanuel's sentiment is backed up by the biggest of Big Money:

"There obviously has been a lot of rhetoric and discussion on the campaign trail," said Christopher Wenk, the senior director for international policy of the pro-trade U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "You talk to anybody in Washington; I think there are concerns there about what's being said. But many of us, myself included, are taking this with a grain of salt...Bashing NAFTA plays well with Ohio voters."

Do you see that divide right there? The lobbyist for the Chamber of Commerce is publicly acknowledging while K Street in Washington is worried, it's not too worried - because the fair trade rhetoric is only meant for us lowly voters, and things meant for lowly voters are not to be taken seriously.

Finally, there is the Tribune reporter's assumption that supporting trade reforms is "anti-trade" and supporting the status quo is "pro-trade." Last I checked, our current trade policies have delivered us a massive trade deficit, meaning Americans are - on net - sending less out than we are importing. In a way, we are trading less while our partners are trading more. Yet, perpetuating this imbalance is labeled "pro-trade" and working to fix this imbalance is considered "anti-trade."

This says nothing of the fact that there's nothing "pro-trade" about a policy that includes all sorts of anti-competitive monopoly protections for patents, intellectual property and copyrights. But to talk about that is to actually explore the trade issue beyond the soundbite of "pro-trade" versus "anti-trade" - and I guess expecting that is expecting too much from economic reporters today.