Trade Policy and Foreign Policy
12.30.06 (12:16 am) [edit]
Here is a link to article at Yahoo about China's intentions for a bigger military.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/ap_on_r e_as/china_military
I'm in no position to tell any country what to do with their own military. I'm not writing about what China should do. My concerns are with my own country first and foremost. We should have expected China to do this a long time ago, and they have been pretty open about their desire to become more of a world power. While that is their business, I don't see any benefit to us from enabling it. They are doing it on our dollar though, and that is our fault and the fault of our trade policy. Our foolish trade policy will lead to problems in foreign policy later.
Trade policy is not just a tool for the development of business; any business development that comes from it should be considered a secondary or tertiary benefit and not the primary aim. Trade policy must always reflect our foreign policy goals with respect to national and global security. Trade policy is also a great tool for the promotion of human rights and civil rights. Sadly, our politicians neglected the need for human and civil rights when they've negotiated our trade agreements.
The greatest shame of GATT and NAFTA and the subsequent trade agreements, besides their passing in the first place, was the decision to free them of any environmental or wage requirements. The people actually doing the work would have benefited greatly if reasonable standards had been put in place. Instead, every consequence predicted by Ralph Nader came true. We lost jobs, we lost salary and wages. We gained hours worked to make up the difference, losing time with our families and our communities. Workers in other countries gained burning mountains of discarded Nike sneakers, sick kids, arthritic teens, and no right to strike for better conditions. For all this, our conservative pundits tell us we get cheaper goods to buy; but none of those pundits have seen the price tags on these sneakers, have they?
Trade policy should reflect our national security needs, not the greed of a narrow class of business elites at the expense of our common good or our common sense. Our trading partners should be our allies. Back during the cold war, at least that was clear. We traded with the free world because to do otherwise would bankroll our enemy. That simple logic is lost on our leaders now. Instead we have a president that claims to see into the heart of Vladimir Putin and see "good" while the man shuts down freedoms and consolidates power in a manner his country has not seen since Stalin. He even calls China an ally while they block action in Sudan, drag their feet with North Korea, and rattle their saber at Taiwan. For a man who supposedly divides the world into good and bad, he seems to have a strange definition.
China has never been and will never be our ally in the foreseeable future. If the student and worker demonstrators in Tiananmen Square had not been killed or jailed, and if they had risen to positions of leadership, we might be talking about a different China; but this China is no ally. Their jails filled with political prisoners, their media filled with the kind of blatant propaganda envied by our own conservatives, and even their internet filtered by software created by US firms and dreamed of US politicians: they are no ally to us. This is no basis for trade arrangements, and yet there it is: they are our biggest trading "partner". They take our money, they take our jobs, and they fund their military build up while we squander our global influence and our military strength in Iraq.
But it doesn't have to be this way. They don't have to build their military on our dollars. We can amend our trade policy, we can get it back in line with our interests instead of in line with the greed of a small handful. We need to rebuild what we let rot here in our own country and amongst our allies. There is nothing that can stop us except our own inflexibility.
This congress has a chance to get trade right. There are bills being crafted now that will either make things better or not go far enough; but we'll have to make the calls and write the letters to our congress people and senators if we want change. The cold war ended and we were supposed to get a "peace dividend" but instead we sat on our asses and let the world coast along. One terrorist attack and all the old cold warriors that were so wrong then about Russia's intentions and capabilities got whip us into a frenzy about another new enemy "terror" which will be a war without end and endless phantoms to fight. Mean while, China is emerging as the power in the east and Russia is restructuring-- like an US corp would-- into a leaner tighter version of Stalinism.
Trade policy is the first tool at our disposal to curb the creation of future enemies. Let's start using that tool for our own purposes instead of letting it be the play thing for a few wealthy fools that don't want to play fair with their workers.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/ap_on_r e_as/china_military
I'm in no position to tell any country what to do with their own military. I'm not writing about what China should do. My concerns are with my own country first and foremost. We should have expected China to do this a long time ago, and they have been pretty open about their desire to become more of a world power. While that is their business, I don't see any benefit to us from enabling it. They are doing it on our dollar though, and that is our fault and the fault of our trade policy. Our foolish trade policy will lead to problems in foreign policy later.
Trade policy is not just a tool for the development of business; any business development that comes from it should be considered a secondary or tertiary benefit and not the primary aim. Trade policy must always reflect our foreign policy goals with respect to national and global security. Trade policy is also a great tool for the promotion of human rights and civil rights. Sadly, our politicians neglected the need for human and civil rights when they've negotiated our trade agreements.
The greatest shame of GATT and NAFTA and the subsequent trade agreements, besides their passing in the first place, was the decision to free them of any environmental or wage requirements. The people actually doing the work would have benefited greatly if reasonable standards had been put in place. Instead, every consequence predicted by Ralph Nader came true. We lost jobs, we lost salary and wages. We gained hours worked to make up the difference, losing time with our families and our communities. Workers in other countries gained burning mountains of discarded Nike sneakers, sick kids, arthritic teens, and no right to strike for better conditions. For all this, our conservative pundits tell us we get cheaper goods to buy; but none of those pundits have seen the price tags on these sneakers, have they?
Trade policy should reflect our national security needs, not the greed of a narrow class of business elites at the expense of our common good or our common sense. Our trading partners should be our allies. Back during the cold war, at least that was clear. We traded with the free world because to do otherwise would bankroll our enemy. That simple logic is lost on our leaders now. Instead we have a president that claims to see into the heart of Vladimir Putin and see "good" while the man shuts down freedoms and consolidates power in a manner his country has not seen since Stalin. He even calls China an ally while they block action in Sudan, drag their feet with North Korea, and rattle their saber at Taiwan. For a man who supposedly divides the world into good and bad, he seems to have a strange definition.
China has never been and will never be our ally in the foreseeable future. If the student and worker demonstrators in Tiananmen Square had not been killed or jailed, and if they had risen to positions of leadership, we might be talking about a different China; but this China is no ally. Their jails filled with political prisoners, their media filled with the kind of blatant propaganda envied by our own conservatives, and even their internet filtered by software created by US firms and dreamed of US politicians: they are no ally to us. This is no basis for trade arrangements, and yet there it is: they are our biggest trading "partner". They take our money, they take our jobs, and they fund their military build up while we squander our global influence and our military strength in Iraq.
But it doesn't have to be this way. They don't have to build their military on our dollars. We can amend our trade policy, we can get it back in line with our interests instead of in line with the greed of a small handful. We need to rebuild what we let rot here in our own country and amongst our allies. There is nothing that can stop us except our own inflexibility.
This congress has a chance to get trade right. There are bills being crafted now that will either make things better or not go far enough; but we'll have to make the calls and write the letters to our congress people and senators if we want change. The cold war ended and we were supposed to get a "peace dividend" but instead we sat on our asses and let the world coast along. One terrorist attack and all the old cold warriors that were so wrong then about Russia's intentions and capabilities got whip us into a frenzy about another new enemy "terror" which will be a war without end and endless phantoms to fight. Mean while, China is emerging as the power in the east and Russia is restructuring-- like an US corp would-- into a leaner tighter version of Stalinism.
Trade policy is the first tool at our disposal to curb the creation of future enemies. Let's start using that tool for our own purposes instead of letting it be the play thing for a few wealthy fools that don't want to play fair with their workers.
