U.S. politicians begin rebuilding protectionist walls

U.S. politicians begin rebuilding protectionist walls

The Right and the Left in the U.S. are harking back to
isolationism. Hardly Clinton's vision of a perfect global
economy, reports Ed Vulliamy.

WASHINGTON: "Congress refused to bail out the crooks in
Indonesia," says John Makin, senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute. "So why should they bail out the crooks in
Korea?"

It sounds cruelly simple, even bone-headed. But Makin's
comment not only touches a nerve, it also cuts to the core of an
increasingly potent movement wary of the global economy lapping
at America's walls, which transcends -- indeed, begins to
redefine -- ideology in the U.S.

On the one hand, there is the polemic of industrial
protectionists such as Makin, represented in politics by right-
wing maverick and two-time presidential candidate Ross Perot. On
the other, from the environmentalists comes a volume which last
week appeared in almost every bookshop window, on the desks of
senators and congressmen and women and is poised to climb the
bestsellers' list. The Case Against the Global Economy is
published by the Sierra Club, equivalent to the National Trust.

And many in between are wary of subjugation to a globally
entwined economy and its latest manifestation around the Pacific
Rim. The labor unions are at loggerheads with the greens over
global warming at Kyoto, but side by side with both the
environmentalists, the Perot camp and their bosses in the
automotive trade over the global economy.

Both main parties are in theory devotees of free trade, yet
both delivered Bill Clinton a crippling blow this month when they
refused to authorize him to negotiate free trade arrangements on
a "fast track", without a congressional right to renegotiate and
veto.

The Democrats, to Clinton's dismay, chose their ties to the
labor movement over those to the White House. The Republicans --
torn between free trade instincts and discomfort with nation-
states becoming anachronisms -- chose their parochial powers on
Capitol Hill over free trade.

The result was a pause in which the U.S. is staging a national
debate over the terms of engagement between Americans and the
global economy and about the terms of "internationalism". In the
middle of that debate comes the Asian meltdown.

Unlike Japan, the U.S. is in a position to buy the surplus
consumer goods spewing out of Asia -- indeed, cheaper imports are
needed to prevent the American economy from overheating. But the
politicians know that what is good for America is not necessarily
good for General Motors or any of the other industries that must
compete with Asian imports. They also know what the unions want,
what the exchequer can stand, what the environmentalists demand.

The received wisdom is that the U.S. is irrevocably stitched
into the global economy and that in a free trade market the
strongest wins in the end. "It's the (global) economy, stupid!",
to paraphrase Clinton's election catchphrase. So why did "fast
track" go down in flames? Why does Clinton have to go to
Vancouver as a man to whom Asian leaders must look for salvation,
but who might not be able to deliver?

The Case Against the Global Economy is co-edited by Jerry
Mander, an advertising executive who made a name by fighting to
keep dams out of the Grand Canyon and establishing the Redwood
National Park.

His co-editor is Britain's Teddy Goldsmith, author of the
Blueprint for Survival and brother of the late Sir James, who
writes in the book that to win at international capitalism is
"like winning at poker on the Titanic".

Mander attacks the "euphoria" of globalism as being based on
"the freedom to deploy, at a global level... large-scale versions
of the economic theories, strategies and policies that have
proven spectacularly unsuccessful over the past decades, wherever
they have been applied".

None of this was on the agenda at Vancouver last week, where
Renato Ruggiero, president of the World Trade Organization,
warned the U.S.: "An increasingly trade-dependent economy like
the U.S. cannot afford to stand on the sidelines. Isolation is no
longer an option, least of all for the most powerful economy in
the world. Without the U.S., it is difficult to see how the
multilateral trading system can go forward."

In the New York Times this week, the influential columnist
Thomas Friedman wrote the best guide to date: "It's official.
America has a four-party system."

They belong, he says, on the "Friedman matrix of globalization
politics, where you locate how you feel about the way in which
technology and open markets are combining to integrate the world.
At the far right of this line are the integrationists... at the
left end are the separatists.

"Locate yourself somewhere on this line between separatists
and integrationists. Now draw a line from North to South, through
the middle of the globalization line. This is the distribution
line. It defines what you believe should go along with
globalization to cushion its worst social, economic and
environmental impacts.

"At the southern end are the social safety-netters... at the
northern end are the 'Let-them-eat-Cakers'... Me, I'm an
Integrationist-Social-Safety-Netter. How about you?"

-- The Observer News Service