It is best to simply ignore Washington Post editorials on trade. The editorial board approaches this issue with vitriol and determined ignorance. They have no interest in a serious discussion of the impact of recent trade agreements on the United States and its trading partners. I can say this with certainty, because to argue the case for NAFTA, the Post editorial board made the absolutely absurd assertion that Mexico's GDP "has more than quadrupled since 1987." According to the IMF, the correct figure is 84.0 percent. Any serious newspaper would have promptly and prominently corrected such an egregious error as soon as it was brought to its attention. As I’ve said before, I don’t know whether the Post’s board is so utterly clueless about economics that they can’t tell the difference between earth shattering growth and stagnation, or whether they just will make up any numbers that seem convenient to advance their argument. Either way, the Post’s views have no place in a serious debate on trade policy. The reason for mentioning the Post’s record on trade is that they decided to again bash the Democratic presidential candidates for their criticisms of NAFTA. The Post told Senators Clinton and Obama to stop criticizing a treaty that has benefited all three countries and to turn to a discussion of how best to manage “the unstoppable forces of globalization.” Maybe the Post can tell its readers which forces of globalization are unstoppable. I wouldn’t know since I don’t go to their church. As an economist, I might think that the most unstoppable forces of globalization are the erosion of forms of protectionism that the Post supports and even profits from, like patent and copyright protection. With globalization and the spread of the Internet, these forms of protection will become ever harder to enforce. But, the Post is not interested in a serious discussion of removing these barriers to free trade. It might also be good to discuss the professional and licensing barriers that protect U.S. doctors, lawyers, and other highly educated professionals from international competition, but the Washington Post fundamentalists are not interested in that debate either. The Post just wants to condemn any political figure that doesn’t accept the trade gospel from its bible, even if they cannot support it with a shred of evidence or economic theory.
--Dean Baker
