The Washington Post has a profoundly wrongheaded op-ed on CAFTA today. It's written by Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Paul L.E. Grieco and attempts to argue that we should support the agreement because free trade, over the last century or so, has been hugely good for America.
Sigh.
Folks aren't opposing CAFTA because they question the merits of free trade. Actually, never mind, that's not quite right. But nevertheless, the critical mass of opposition is only emerging because free traders are joining with protectionists to oppose the bill. And why are we doing this? It's not because we've seen the light on tariffs or some such thing, but because the bill is a brutal attempt to destroy labor standards in Central America.
Indeed, the past century that the op-ed so lauds has seen an ever-advancing regime of worker's rights here in America. In some ways it's made us less competitive, but it's also boosted our producticity, made our populace healthier and happier, freed up innovation, empowered workers to change industries, and generally offered up a variety of GDP-enhancing side effects. CAFTA is a step in the opposite direction and, more galling, it needn't be. There's no reason a free trade agreement can't have labor standards, no reason it needs to make the importation and production of generic AIDS drugs harder, no reason that it needs to take a Hobbesian view of free trade that rejects the progress American workers have made over the last century. So here's a deal: you fix CAFTA and all us liberal free traders will rush back to your side to sing the praises of globalization. Until then, don't talk to us about history, it just makes you look self-serving.
