When it comes to cracking down on opponents of the selective protectionism that passes for free trade in Washington policy circles, David Broder is one of the foremost enforcers. He is working overtime this Sunday, denouncing the irresponsibility of the Democratic presidential candidates for not supporting his trade agenda. Just to remind everyone, these trade deals are slectively protectionist because they only break down some trade barriers, while leaving others in place, and actually strengthening some forms of protectionism. The main barriers that the "free-traders" want to eliminate are the barriers to importing manufactured goods into the United States. Eliminating these barriers has the effect of placing U.S. manufacturing workers into direct competition with low paid workers in the developing world. While this lowers the price of manufactured goods for consumers in the United States, it also reduces the wages of manufacturing workers and less-educated (non-college educated) workers more generally. As a practical matter, the "free-traders" have largely succeeded in removing the barriers to trade in manufactured goods (we can buy anything we want from China), so the remaining deals will have little impact in this regard. The free-traders are absolutely fine with the protectionist barriers which keep up the wages of highly paid professionals. There are professional and licensing barriers that prevent foreign doctors, lawyers, and other professionals from working in the United States. These barriers cost U.S. consumers hundreds of billions of dollars every year. The "free-traders" don't object to barriers that sustain their own high wages or those of their friends. (They all claim to oppose such barriers, but no one has ever been denounced in the pages of the Washington Post for not supporting liberalized trade in physicians services.) The protectionist part of these trade deals is increasing the stringency of patent and copyright protection. Almost all of the trade deals pushed by the U.S. increase patent protection for prescription drugs and copyright protection for music, movies, and software. These are incredibly costly forms of protectionism since items that would otherwise be cheap (drugs) or free (downloaded music and software) are made very expensive as the result of government granted monopolies. But, the free traders like pharmaceutical companies and software tycoons more than they like textile workers and autoworkers, so they denounce the opponents of protectionism for their products as "protectionist." So, it's ad hominum Sunday as Mr. Broder calls out those who aren't with the program. Enjoy the entertainment.
--Dean Baker
