Wall Street Journal, USA
Trade Deals Will Face More Critics in Congress
By Brad Haynes
29 November 2008
Free-trade critics picked up more than two dozen House seats and at least six Senate seats in the Nov. 4 election, a shift that could further endanger proposed free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea.
"This could be the most trade-skeptical Congress paired with the most trade-skeptical president since Herbert Hoover and the Republicans in 1930," said Daniel Griswold, a trade expert with the pro-free-trade Cato Institute.
[Sherrod Brown] Associated Press
Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown says Democratic victories, such as Jeff Merkley’s in Oregon, are a boost to free-trade critics.
The tally of seats by Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group critical of the Bush administration’s free-trade agenda, indicated that the 2008 election was the second in a row in which voter anxieties about globalization appeared to help Democrats at the polls. In 2006, more than 20 winning candidates were seen as more critical of free trade than the incumbents they defeated.
Free-trade advocates question whether trade rhetoric played a decisive part in the 2008 campaign, but many agree that the number of lawmakers who are skeptical of the benefits of free trade is growing on Capitol Hill.
The agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea have been negotiated by President George W. Bush but await congressional approval. Mr. Bush is particularly eager to pass the Colombia deal before the new Congress takes over.
[Jeff Merkley] Associated Press
Jeff Merkley
To be sure, many centrist Democrats, including congressional leaders such as Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus of Montana, continue to support the kind of free-trade policies advocated by the Clinton administration.
And a number of Democratic candidates skeptical about free trade lost, including in two open House races. Republican businessmen Brett Guthrie and Chris Lee won in Kentucky and New York, respectively, even as their Democratic opponents ran campaign ads criticizing them over trade issues.
Many winning congressional candidates across the country played to voters’ concerns over recent free-trade agreements, while several candidates who had supported such agreements lost. Republican Reps. Phil English of Pennsylvania and Robin Hayes of North Carolina, for instance, provided key votes in the narrow passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement; both lost to Democrats who repeatedly made references to their role.
During his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama raised a number of concerns about Mr. Bush’s free-trade agenda. The Democrat opposed the Colombia pact, saying the South American country remains hostile to organized-labor leaders. He has also pledged to get tough on South Korea over its quotas on auto imports, and on China over its alleged efforts to keep its currency low against the U.S. dollar, making its imports unfairly cheap.
Free-trade advocates argue that trade wasn’t a central issue in most competitive races, with only a dozen of the 50-plus new candidates who won having mentioned trade issues on their campaign Web sites, according to the National Foreign Trade Council, a Washington group promoting free trade. But the number of campaign ads highlighting the alleged harms of free trade grew to more than 140 this election, from 25 in 2006, according to Public Citizen.
The shift comes as the economy has sputtered and Americans are becoming more concerned about their finances and job security. In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in March, nearly 60% of voters said the globalization of trade was bad for the U.S. economy. Only 25% of respondents thought the global economy created jobs because it "opened up new markets."
The success of such candidates as Democrat Jeff Merkley, who won a Senate seat in Oregon, suggested that the issue resonated beyond the traditionally protectionist Midwest. The Pacific Northwest is home to Nike Inc., Microsoft Corp. and many other companies that rely on foreign trade, and it has long been seen as supporting free trade. Mr. Merkley beat incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith after airing nine television ads that blamed job losses in the state on free-trade policies that the Republican lawmaker supports.
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and other proponents of "fair trade" policies said victories like Mr. Merkley’s will provide momentum for their agenda. Sen. Brown and more than 75 co-sponsors in the House and Senate have proposed legislation to review and possibly renegotiate existing free-trade agreements to ensure that they contain strong environmental, safety and labor standards.
These fair-trade proponents also want the government to strengthen enforcement to prevent dumping — the sale of foreign wares in U.S. markets at prices below the cost of production — and to crack down on currency manipulation by other countries.
Other free-trade skeptics take a tougher stance. In North Carolina, Democrat Larry Kissell, a former textile worker, defeated Rep. Hayes in a campaign focused on the lawmaker’s free-trade votes. Mr. Kissell has called for a "free-trade moratorium" until jobs return to the district.