Freely Trading His Principles

In this election season, President Bush has positioned himself as an unabashed supporter of free trade, as a man who will uphold that longstanding American ideal against the waffling of Gov. Bill "Pattern" Clinton and the protectionist heresy of Ross Perot. He has even said that he doesn't care if his free trade stance is unpopular, because he knows it to be right.

When a politician goes to such lengths to support a position, it is reasonable to suppose that he in fact does support it. But when that politician is George Bush, supposing is a dangerous thing.

Bush, of course, has taken a beating for "read my lips" and other domestic flip-flops (or, as George calls them, "mistakes"). But he has maintained the image of a man of principle and determination on the international front.

Patrick J. Buchanan, in announcing his candidacy, accused Bush of being an "internationalist" (one kept waiting for Buchanan to air an attack ad which used "The Internationale" for theme music). The Democrats seconded the notion with their "George Bush: The Anywhere But America Tour" T-shirts.

Pat Buchanan, rest easy--George Bush is no internationalist, nor is he a free trader. As we have discovered so often during the past four years, where Bush stands has nothing to do with where his policies lie.

The recent Bush initiative in the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is the latest demonstration of the administration's penchant for "managed" trade.

Bush is using the current GATT talks to push for quotas on European agricultural production (cereals by 13 million tons, soybeans by 6 million tons), quotas for European agricultural imports (to 5 percent of European consumption) and an immediate end to European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) farm subsidies--without any parallel American commitment.

Of course, this proposal is a bald faced grab for arm votes in the runup to the November election, but that's old news. Much more frightening is that, in a single stroke, Bush has wantonly threatened the stability of the European Community (E.C.) and has seriously undermined the GATT mission of multilateral trade liberalization.

By asking for an immediate cessation to CAP subsidies, Bush has driven a wedge between the countries that mostly pay for the policy--including Britain, Germany and the Netherlands--and the country that mostly benefits--France.

In a year when French paysans are already in open revolt against their French and European governors, Paris needed Bush's initiative like it needed another guillotine.

France has had to threaten a major blowup in the E.C. to ward off CAP's immediate demise. In light of the Maastricht debacle and the Exchange Rate Mechanism fiasco, a war over the CAP might cause a complete E.C. meltdown. Then E.C. would come to stand for "Economic Crisis," and Europe would pull the rest of the world economy down with it.

But threatening the stability of the E.C. seems not to be enough for this president, who used to make a watchword of "prudence." Bush has gone after the GATT as well.

The GATT has been one of the paragons of postwar liberalization and stability, spectacularly successful in its mission of making the ideal of free trade a reality. Today, thanks in large part of the GATT process, tariffs on industrial goods are negligible.

The GATT is one international structure that has really worked. And it is perhaps the last institutional check on the formation of trading blocs, which would have a negative geopolitical and well as economic impact.

For an American president--a self-proclaimed free trader, no less--to come to the GATT and propose quotas and managed trade marks a mortal blow to the free trade ideal. It is a signal that in the post-Cold War world, trading blocs and mutual hostilities will replace open borders and open hearts.

Bush supporters might claim that the GATT talks only represent a piece of the Bush trade policy. They might point to the centerpiece of that policy, the "free trade" promised by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Bush's strongest rhetorical defenses of free trade as a concept have come in his defense of NAFTA. But NAFTA is a Trojan Horse for gullible free traders. It is no embrace of free trade. Rather, North America is fast becoming merely the latest bloc on the block. Far from being a milestone in trade liberalization, NAFTA is a big step toward the creation of a trade "Fortress America."

By threatening European and world economic stability, and by abandoning the lofty multilateralist goals of this country's past, Bush has abdicated our responsibility for world leadership on trade.

Bush likes to claim that America is the undisputed leader of the world. But one can only guess what other abdications of leadership might result from "four more years."