Trade Liberalization Update

One of my real hot-button issues is global trade liberalization. I'm a big believer in free trade and won't allow the myopians' heartbreaking anecdotes about shuttered factories to undermine my utilitarian belief in the power of markets, economic rationlization, global wage equilibration, or nearly 70 years of rising global standards of living.

The Bush Administration has had some missteps on trade policy (the farm bill and the European steel imbroglio come to mind), but when it comes to negotiating bilateral trade liberalization and multilateral leadership in the Doha Round I would give them high marks.

Daniel Drezner addresses the latest coup which might have slipped beneath your radar:

Last week, however, the U.S. and South Korea announced that they intended to negotiate an FTA over the course of this year. USTR representative Rob Portman said, "This is the most commercially significant free trade negotiation we have embarked on in 15 years," and he's not lying -- you'd have to go back to the start of NAFTA for an FTA that would have as big an economic impact.

It's a big deal. Not only is South Korea the tenth largest economy in the world and one of our largest export markets, it is also one of our strongest partners in Asia and a sucessfully concluded agreement would more firmly entrench American business in the heart of the Pacific Rim. Economically, this has tremendous potential to open markets for US goods and to reduce economic burdens on American consumers. Politically, this represents another major milestone in terms of the Bush Administration reshuffling the alliance deck. While we are not moving away from Europe, we are certainly more active and attentive in places like Asia, the Middle East and Africa. At least in this regard, I think it is safe to say that this Administration is more visionary than laggard. The same cannot be said in other areas of its foreign policy. But give credit where credit is due.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...