The Wall Street Journal had a piece discussing U.S. trade policy in which it repeatedly referred to the trade policies promoted by the Clinton and Bush administrations as "free trade" and described the opponents of these agreements as protectionists. This is inaccurate. The trade deals advanced by these administrations mostly reduced trade barriers that protected less educated workers, while leaving protections for the most highly educated and highly paid workers largely in place. This had the predictable effect of shifting income from people like auto workers textile workers and custodians to people like doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers. (The benefits went primarily to highly paid workers, there was little shift from wages to profits over this period.) The deals also tightened up some form of protectionism, such as patents and copyrights. Most of the deal imposed much more stringent rules in these areas on developing countries, which raised the price of prescription drugs, recorded music and videos, and other products. The effect of this increased protectionism would likely be slower growth in developing countries and the world as a whole. No one cited in this article actually is a supporter of free trade. The main dispute between the people cited in the article is whether they want to protect the wages of less educated workers in the United States or whether they only want to protect the wages of doctors, lawyers, investment bankers and other highly paid workers. The WSJ identifies the latter group as supporting free trade. This makes their position sound more attractive to many readers, but it is not accurate.
--Dean Baker
