Free Republic

House Democrats recently inflicted a near-mortal blow to free trade. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, using her considerable procedural power, delayed indefinitely an up-or-down congressional vote on approving the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. True, scuttling this particular deal will neither crush the international trading system nor immediately inaugurate a new era of protectionist policies. Blocking a trade agreement with Colombia is not the 21st-century version of the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill. But the absence of more full-throated public support and effective response from free-trade advocates underscores a broader and more fundamental weakness in the way open-market proponents participate in the electoral process and...

There are "seven meals between civilization and anarchy," says Josette Sheeran, executive director of United Nation's World Food Program. What takes those meals away, driving citizens to base needs and destabilizing countries? Growing demand, changing diets, weather disruption and, sadly enough, restricted trade. There has been little good news for food relief. A forecast today from Goldman Sachs said oil prices could rise to $150 to $200 per barrel in the next two years--dramatically driving up the price of producing and transporting food for the foreseeable future. The rising price of oil makes ethanol and other biofuels more viable, furthering...

In a region beset by runaway food costs, the socialist government of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and its leftist allies appear to have found fertile ground to plant the seeds of revolutionary discourse. At an emergency food-security summit held Wednesday in Managua, Nicaragua, 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations convened under the umbrella of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the leftist trade bloc founded in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela as an alternative to United States free-trade agreements. The summit was supposed to focus on how the countries can prevent food shortages and unrest as the global food crisis...

WASHINGTON—In March, inspectors checking Chinese seafood arriving at U.S. ports made some unsettling discoveries: fish infected with salmonella in Baltimore and Seattle, and shrimp with banned veterinary drugs in Florida. Meanwhile, a shipment intercepted in Los Angeles on March 19 and labeled "channel catfish" wasn't catfish at all, though records don't say what it was. "A lot of those products coming in from overseas, you have no clue as to what is in them," said Paul Hitchens, an aquaculture specialist in Southern Illinois, where cut-rate Chinese catfish are threatening the livelihood of fish farmers. China rapidly has become the leading...

Each day, I make the dreaded drive down Interstate 35 to go to work in Fort Worth. Each day, I slug through the snarl and sludge of ceaseless traffic, which intensifies my growing desire to commit hari-kari, or at least incites a vehement curse of the highway gods. Certainly, we in Texas need more lanes, more roads, more rails, more something to deal with the ever-expanding urban population and growing international commerce. Yet how do we solve our transportation needs without carving up the countryside like some congratulatory cake? Or should the construction of a superhighway-rail-utility corridor even concern us?...

History has taught us that other than raising taxes, nothing can be more damaging to the United States than assuming a protectionist posture during a time of economic downturn.  But that’s exactly the situation after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to bar a vote on the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Colombia Free Trade It is important the United States gains equitable access to the markets of fast-growing developing nations like Colombia.  Colombian-produced goods already enter the United States duty free, but American-manufactured goods exported to that country face stiff tariffs, ranging from eight percent to...

Critics ask: Is Schaffer going soft on abortions? By Lynn Bartels Originally published 06:56 p.m., April 21, 2008 Updated 06:56 p.m., April 21, 2008 Republican Bob Schaffer, an ardent pro-life advocate in the state legislature and Congress, now faces critics who question whether he really opposes abortion. The criticism, which comes as Schaffer campaigns for the U.S. Senate, has upset some of his backers. "Of all the Colorado politicians that we have, this is one of the few where I would not question his commitment to pro life," said state Rep. Kevin Lundberg, a fellow Larimer County Republican. In recent...

It is amazing how some presidential candidates are blaming the North American Free Trade Agreement for U.S. job losses. They seem to believe that a substantial part of the three million manufacturing jobs lost since 2000 resulted from Nafta, and that outsourcing of manufacturing production to Mexico and Canada resulted in a huge trade deficit. ...What the antitrade advocates have been hiding from the candidates (or maybe don't know themselves) is that almost all of the increase in our Nafta deficit since 2000 has been in increased U.S. imports of energy from Canada and Mexico. In fact, $58 billion of...

Huckabee & The Club friends at last? TRIBUNE-REVIEW By: Salena Zito When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was running for the Republcian nomination for president, no one attacked him more often and with more conservative muscle than the uber-economic conservatives from The Club for Growth. Pat Tommey, chairman of The Club, wrote last October in The National Review that a flirtation with Huckabee even as a vice presidential candidate did a "great disservice to the conservative movement if it overlooks Huckabee’s stunning record of big-government liberalism.” So, it came as a bit of surprise to receive a blast e-mail from...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryApril 19, 2008 President's Radio Address   President's Radio Address  Audio  En Español       In Focus: International Trade THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Next week, I will be hosting the North American Leaders' Summit in New Orleans. This event will give me an opportunity to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calder n to discuss some of the most significant issues facing our hemisphere and the world. One of the issues that I'll be discussing with these leaders is the importance of expanding trade in our hemisphere. Recently I sent Congress an...

There is little doubt that our reputation and motivations are under siege by demagogues around the world. Only a few work as diligently at undermining the United States and threatening neighboring democracies as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez’s recent efforts to destabilize Latin America by amassing troops on the Colombian border in response to the killing of a terrorist leader cannot be ignored. Nor can we look the other way after a captured computer reveals Chavez’s direct funding of the notorious terrorist group FARC. Ecuador, where the strike on the FARC camp took place, has frozen relations with Colombia. Meanwhile,...

Yesterday, the House faced a decision to vote for or against reducing government-imposed barriers to the international exchange of goods and services. Most Democrats, and six Republicans voted with the protectionists. ______________________________________________________ H.RES.1092.EH Relating to the consideration of the bill (H.R. 5724) to implement the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement. Resolved, That section 151(e)(1) and section 151(f)(1) of the Trade Act of 1974 shall not apply in the case of the bill (H.R. 5724) to implement the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement.

Most economists agree free trade is a boon to the U.S. and a pact with valued ally Colombia is vital. “There’s perhaps no more important free-trade agreement in recent memory,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned at a White House briefing Wednesday that included six Bush Cabinet members. News of Pelosi’s threat to change the House rules to block any vote at all on Colombia’s pact drew them into the swiftly arranged appearance because this is urgent. But as bad as Pelosi’s maneuver is, it signals she probably is afraid. On Monday, President Bush forced the treaty to a congressional...

These days, Democrats are not sounding very liberal. Classic liberals, after all, would support free markets, internationalism, and the universal desire for constitutional government, while downplaying racial affinity. But the following examples highlight how far from these ideals today’s liberals are. Campaigning earlier this year in recession-prone Ohio, both Democratic candidates trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement. Sen. Barack Obama advocated renegotiation of the treaty. And Sen. Hillary Clinton assured voters she had always opposed NAFTA, an agreement that was concluded under her husband’s administration. But then a funny thing happened. A top economic adviser to Obama, Austan Goolsbee,...

Bill Clinton backed Colombia trade deal: 'Estoy a favor' A reader in Latin America turned up a June 23, 2005 article from the news portal Terra (reprinted (.doc) by the Bogota government) that quotes Bill Clinton offering unambiguous support for the free trade agreement with Colombia. The article is in Spanish, so what follows is a translation of a translation, but the gist is unmistakable: "We need your help to expedite the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU is very important to give a clear signal of what the relations between the two countries should be,"...

NYT ADVISES HILLARY AND OBAMA TO TELL "TRUTH" ABOUT TRADE Mrs. Clinton seems to draw inspiration as well, railing to the Pennsylvania A.F.L.-C.I.O. against alleged dumping of Chinese steel: “When I’m President, China will be a trade partner not a trade master,” she said. Such pandering may play on the stump, especially in Pennsylvania, where workers fear for their jobs as the country’s manufacturing base shrinks. Still, whoever wins in November would be foolish to choose protectionism. Democrats need to tell voters the truth: First, trade is good for the economy, providing cheap imports and markets for exports, spurring productivity...

The U.S. is betting that a rich PRC will be democratic. Beijing disagrees. Two bets are on the table. One has been placed by the Washington establishment, the other by the Chinese Communist Party. Analyzing China’s prospects in terms of fashionable globalist ideology, Washington is betting that a rich China will be a free one. The theory is that the only way China can continue to grow is by embracing Western democracy and capitalism. Moreover, the very process of China’s enrichment is supposedly undermining the Beijing government’s authoritarianism. More wealth means more freedom means more wealth. Here is how President...

As the Democratic presidential campaign marches on, its most alarming public policy issue is Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's antitrade advocacy. As liberal leaders, they are of course for higher income taxes, greater federal spending, and rapid withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. But passionate protectionism illustrates the pro-government, anti-market philosophy that is the core of their beliefs, and it reflects the seriously wrong direction in which they will take America if one of them becomes our next president. International trade is good for the U.S. economy. It creates jobs to produce the products America exports, provides workers for foreign...

South Texas is not only going to get its first interstate - it is also going to get a second and a third. State transportation officials knew one of three southern highways - U.S. Highway 281 in Hidalgo County, U.S. Highway 77 in Cameron County or U.S. Highway 59 in Webb County - would eventually become part of an interstate stretching from the Texas-Mexico border to Texarkana, in the northeast part of the state. Only Webb County is currently served by an interstate. The state's Trans-Texas Corridor plan calls for an Interstate 69 extension linking South Texas to points north,...

There's been a lot of talk about the new Trans-Texas Corridor — the next-generation "super-highway" — and opinions are varying. Now the debate is coming to Lufkin's doorstep. On Monday, the American Land Foundation, Stewards of the Range and TURF will hold a workshop at Lufkin's Pitser Garrison Civic Center on how to stop the Trans-Texas Corridor 69. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A portion of Texas citizens have voiced their opposition to the TTC-69 in public meetings held by the Texas Department of Transportation, but believing they are not being heard, four cities and their...

The US administration on Wednesday threatened to submit a contentious free trade agreement with Colombia to Congress without the consent of the Democratic leadership in a move that would open up a new front in the fight over US trade policy. Susan Schwab, US trade representative, told reporters that in the absence of an agreement with House Democrats, the White House would ask Congress to consider the Colombia free trade agreement “immediately or very shortly after” the Easter recess, which ends on March 30. “We can’t let delay translate into inaction,” Ms Schwab said. The administration’s decision represents a break...

Officials with the Spanish toll road operator Cintra have announced that the company has secured $430 million in loans from the U.S. government to build and operate two segments of a toll road in central Texas. Cintra officials announced the company’s financial plan for the $1.36 billion Highway 130 segments on Monday, March 10. OOIDA Senior Government Affairs Representative Mike Joyce told Land Line that the Association does raise red flags when federal dollars are used to subsidize private investors. Officials with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are not, however, categorically opposed to a state using future toll revenue to...

Making residential and commercial buildings more environmentally friendly in North America is the cheapest and most efficient way to cut greenhouse gas emissions fuelling global warming, according to a NAFTA commission's report. The Commission for Environmental Cooperation's report, released at the GLOBE 2008 conference in Vancouver on Thursday, calls for task forces in Canada, the United States and Mexico to look into so-called green construction, set clearly defined targets for such buildings and assist environmentally friendly construction already underway. The Montreal-based commission said although more environmentally friendly buildings can improve the health of inhabitants, the report focused mostly on lowering...

Economy: President Bush soon will take one of the biggest risks of his presidency by forcing Congress to vote on Colombian free trade without Democratic leaders' consent. A big gamble, yes. But it's the only way to win.Rarely have we seen Bush go for broke as he did Wednesday, sending word he'd make Congress take a stand on the Colombia pact. For two years, Congress has dithered about its passage, constantly changing the terms of approval, and in the end just stalling because most members can't justify openly scuppering it. But Bush called their bluff. "Time is running out," he...

Last Updated: Friday, March 7, 2008 | 6:35 PM ET CBC News Hillary Clinton's campaign team has never told any Canadian officials that their candidate's anti-NAFTA statements are just political posturing, the Prime Minister's Office said Friday. In the midst of the so-called NAFTA-gate affair, the PMO clarified — two days after it was first asked a question about the matter — that Canadian officials never requested, nor received, a private briefing from Clinton's aides on her position on the continental trade treaty. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff, Ian Brodie, reportedly told journalists that both U.S. Democratic presidential...

REFUGIO, Texas - With an abandoned Wild West-vintage town of storefronts slumbering just a block from old US 77, tiny Refugio is a place where myth and reality coexist in a ghostly silence. more stories like this Obama faces heat over aide's NAFTA remarks to Canadians Texas, Ohio could decide Dem nomination Canada says didn't misrepresent Obama over NAFTA McCain tags Dems on trade treaty NAFTA seen differently in Ohio, Texas And now this South Texas outpost is swept up in one of the more intriguing tests of myth vs. reality in today's political life: the battle over the so-called...

According to Noam Scheiber of The New Republic, the dust up over Obama’s two faced NAFTA policy doesn’t seem to be going away and in fact, may be working against the Illinois senator: Okay, scratch what I said about Goolsbee and Canada. I still don’t think it’s substantively a big deal, but between hearing CNN’s reports from Ohio this morning, and listening in on a Clinton conference call just now (and hearing reporters’ questions on the subject), I think they’re getting some significant traction with this story today. Two things make it problematic for the Obama campaign: 1.) The sudden...

Who’s for Free Trade? Karen Porter 02/27/2008 In recent weeks, Barack Obama has criticized Hillary Clinton for her past support of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created the largest free trade bloc in the world. Rhetoric aside, where do the presidential candidates really stand on trade? An interactive web tool created by the Cato Institute may help provide the answer. The tool tracks trade-related votes between 1999 and 2008, evaluating senators and congressmen based on their support for or opposition to trade barriers and subsidies. Those who both oppose barriers and subsidies are classified as “free traders”;...

Democrats often pillory Republicans for their economic errors. From the 1930s on, they reminded Americans of Herbert Hoover's Great Depression. In 1960, they blamed Dwight Eisenhower for slow growth. In the 1980s, they decried the "trickle-down" policies of Ronald Reagan. And today, they excoriate the damage caused by the North American Free Trade Agreement passed under... Bill Clinton. Even Hillary Clinton treats the accord with a warmth she normally reserves for Kenneth Starr. She never misses a chance to denounce what she calls "the shortcomings of NAFTA," or to insist she was always against it. But she has to deal...

The debate in Texas over a proposed 4,000-mile network of toll roads that will parallel the state's existing highway system is heating up More than 10,000 people have attended public hearings across Texas to discuss the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor, which has also been dubbed the "NAFTA superhighway." It is a project that is expected to cost an estimated $183 billion over 50 years. (hear audio report) Terry Hall with the group Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom warns the project will create widespread eminent domain abuse and involve foreign control of public infrastructure. "They're taking huge swaths of land, up...

** EXCERPT ** If one wants to look for the moment where Mr. Obama's campaign started to go sour, mark the point where he veered onto the protectionist path — and left it so that the presidential candidate in the race who is going to be defending one of the landmark policy achievements of the Clinton-Gore administration is going to be, unless Mayor Bloomberg gets in, none other than the Republican, Senator McCain. The achievement of which we speak is the North American Free Trade Agreement, and in the past few days, Senator Obama has been launching increasingly shrill attacks...

Several months ago when the news broke about poisonous pet food and lead-laden toys from China, I asked my local pharmacy to give me a letter stating it is not selling me any prescription drugs imported from China. The reply was, "We don't buy any drugs from China." I said, "I know you don't, but I want you to check with your suppliers and verify that they don't buy from China." That request was met by thunderous silence. Now we know why. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that 80 percent of the drug substances used by U.S. manufacturers to...

Economists Rethink Free Trade It's no wholesale repudiation, to be sure, but something momentous is happening as doubts begin to creep in by Jane Sasseen BW Magazine Over the Limit Do Bond Insurers Need CPR? Nothing Spreads Like Subprime News You Need to Know The Fed's Race Against Recession This Issue February 11, 2008 Housing Meltdown Previous Issue Next Issue Story Tools post a comment e-mail this story print this story order a reprint digg this save to del.icio.us Many ordinary Americans have long been suspicious of free trade, seeing it as a destroyer of good-paying jobs. American economists, though,...

A so-called “NAFTA Superhighway� earned support from the city’s mayor and discussion among residents Monday during a public hearing on the Texas Department of Transportation’s I-69 project. TxDOT held a public hearing at the Brownsville Events Center Monday to explain the progress of the Trans-Texas Corridor, a future segment of Highway I-69, which will link the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S.-Canada border. After a short presentation, the floor was open for comments. Among the local politicians, college students and retirees at the hearing there was a wide range of opinion on the project. According to Mario Jorge, district engineer for...

MEXICO CITY - Thousands of Mexican farmers, some riding tractors and herding cows, flooded the capital on Thursday to demand government protection against cheap U.S. imports. Trade barriers under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, were lifted in January, opening Mexico for the first time to tariff-free U.S. exports of corn and beans. Mexican farmers complain the government of President Felipe Calderon is not doing enough to protect them against highly subsidized U.S. goods. Protesters are demanding Mexico renegotiate the treaty with the United States to maintain protections for corn and beans. Long lines of slow-moving tractors choked...

Some Texans are afraid of losing their land to the Trans-Texas Corridor while others loathe the thought of a quarter-mile-wide swath of toll roads and railway lines transforming the countryside into a superhighway. People continue to turn out in droves at public meetings concerning the controversial Trans-Texas Corridor proposal, specifically the portion known as the TTC-69 proposed from Brownsville to Texarkana. A meeting Monday, Jan. 28, at the fairgrounds in Austin County was no exception, drawing more than 1,000 people. Opposition to the proposed corridor has come from people in all walks of life, said Chris Steinbach, chief of staff...

Memo From Colombia: So much for anti-Americanism. Condoleezza Rice went to Medellin last week to support free trade, and people unexpectedly lined the streets to applaud. Can it be that free trade appeals to ordinary people? You wouldn't know it from reading media reports about the secretary of state's two-day visit to the city once ruled by fearsome drug lords. But a funny thing happened on the way to the hotel last Thursday. As Rice's automotive entourage of eight Democratic lawmakers filed through the vast industrial city, outpost soldiers started saluting the VIP caravan. As if in chain reaction, civilians...

President to Push Skeptical Congress For Colombia Deal WASHINGTON -- President Bush will ask skeptical legislators not to spurn free trade, urging passage of a pact with Colombia in a State of the Union address expected to stress keeping the U.S. engaged in the highly competitive global economy. Winning passage of the proposed trade pact with Colombia, and also pending deals with Panama and South Korea, is a priority for Mr. Bush in his final months in office. The Latin American nation is among the U.S.'s closest allies in a region simmering with anti-American sentiments, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez...

Leaders with the Texas Department of Transportation sought to allay fears about the Trans-Texas Corridor Thursday night in Rosenberg with a “town hall” meeting. The meeting proceeded fairly smoothly, but hardly seemed to put a dent in the large crowd's seemingly uniform opposition to the proposal of a massive transportation corridor. Hank Gilbert, a regular speaker at TTC events and leader of an anti-TTC non-profit group, drew cheers for suggesting TxDOT officials have failed to make the case for a large, privately owned transportation cluster. “No good argument has been made for the TTC that would allow farmers to be...

WASHINGTON – Only exports stand between the economy and recession, setting up another national argument about how to handle the rising flow of goods in and out of the country. Transportation fights are usually about who pays to build the roads and transit systems, with little said about trade. The Bush administration and Gov. Rick Perry have supported tolls and steadfastly opposed higher gasoline taxes. A new national study urges paying for desperately needed improvements any way we can, but one thing it specifically recommends is an increase in the federal gas tax of 40 cents a gallon over the...

on Boudreaux, of George Mason University, talks about the ideas in his book, Globalization. He discusses comparative advantage, the winners and losers from trade, trade deficits, and inequality with EconTalk host Russ Roberts.

THE apparent US economic slowdown could trigger global recession this year and stymie years of robust growth in Asia and Africa, the UN said. "The major uncertainty for 2008 now emanates from the US economy," according to the world body's World Economic Situation and Prospects 2008.

Trade: America's trade representative took a gamble of her own in Las Vegas Monday by asserting the administration may force a congressional vote on free trade pacts. Either she likes the odds or a disaster lies ahead.Susan Schwab is no loose cannon. In fact, she's known to be cautious and consensus-minded. But she plainly told the Consumer Electronics Association at its annual trade show that if Congress doesn't bring forward free trade for a vote, the Bush administration may force the issue. It's a risky move. Success would benefit the U.S. on a wide scale for many years. But failure...

MANCHESTER, N.H. – It is the historic mission of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary to give us the establishment candidate in each party, and then the insurgent candidate. The two pairs then battle it out in South Carolina to give us the probable nominees for November. Year 2008 looks no different, with this exception: The insurgents, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, swept the first contests and now have the momentum. And both establishments are reeling. Twenty-four hours before New Hampshire, the GOP establishment has not even settled upon a champion. If Mitt Romney wins the Granite State, he...

January 2008 an executive view Free trade? C'mon  By Brian SullivanWe should rename "free trade." Because it isn't free and it isn't fair. Since it's trade that's regulated in favor of multinational special-interest groups, why don't we call it for what it is: rigged market trade? Why are we so afraid to call a spade a spade? There are 36,000 fewer U.S. factories than there were eight years ago. One in five manufacturing jobs has been lost nationally in the last 10 years. If we don't stem the tide of multinationalism through trade law reform, then between 42 million...

The rest of the world gets uneasy every four years as Americans start to pick their next president. We don't have a vote. But we do have to live with the results. As the tenure of George W. Bush illustrates – this is not always pleasant. With the so-called Iowa caucuses out of the way, the murky U.S. political scene has become marginally clearer. Most Canadians would be hard-pressed to name all of the presidential candidates. We now know, thanks to an arcane and not particularly fair voting system in one of America's smallest states, which names we will never...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Amid new worries about a possible recession, the housing slump and rising oil prices, President Bush is exploring an economic stimulus package to reinforce the U.S. economy. White House press secretary Dana Perino said Thursday that Bush is closely monitoring economic trends and is seeking input from his economic advisers on the pros and cons of such a package. "The president has indicated that he will not make up his mind as to whether or not to lay out a package until the State of the Union," Perino said about the president's speech on Jan. 28. "Our...

Romney addresses China's threat to our economy.Click here for video

Ladies and Gentleman, Michael Parks gave this same presentation to Judge Shifflet at commisoners court on November 14, 2007 to a room full of concerned residents including myself, most of whom, were and still are opposed to this corridor for more than one reason. Throughout the meeting, Mr. Parks stated that Brazos County was in favor of it, and were welcoming it, while the majority of Grimes County residents were telling him Brazos County could have it. Mr. Parks and Brazos county welcomed it allright, right through the middle of our Dear and beautiful county, (no where near Brazos County)...

Here's today quiz. What do the following have in common: (a) Vladimir Putin; (b) China's currency, the renminbi; (c) the U.S.-Peru trade agreement; and (d) Hugo Ch¿vez? Answer: They all reflect the "new mercantilism." It's an ominous development affecting the world economy. Even as countries become more economically interdependent, they're also growing more nationalistic. They're adopting policies intended to advance their own economic and political interests at other countries' expense. As practiced until the mid-19th century, mercantilism aimed to do just that. It was an economic philosophy that favored large trade surpluses. At the time, this had some logic. Trade...