Abstract

Trading Barbs on Trade

The author comments on the positions of the Democratic presidential candidates on U.S. trade policy. When Paul Wellstone opted out of the 2000 presidential race, he fretted that trade policy would not be debated in the Democratic primaries and that the party would run a November campaign that failed to address blue-collar concerns about the damage done to the manufacturing sector by the North American Free Trade Agreement and freer trade with China. Wellstone was right to worry; Gore and Bill Bradley echoed George W. Bush's freetrade stances, and once Gore was nominated, his failure to distinguish himself on trade undermined his populist appeal to union workers in battleground states like Ohio, Missouri and West Virginia--all of which the Democrats lost for the first time since the 1980s. What a difference four years makes. In the contest for the 2004 Democratic nomination, no issue except the Iraq war divides Democrats as does trade. Desperate to regain ground lost to Howard Dean, Kerry attacked the Vermonter for saying trade agreements must be reworked to protect workers and the environment. Dean's stance, which roughly parallels that of the United Auto Workers and most Democrats in Congress, is hardly a recipe for auto-industry decline. What's bizarre about the Kerry-Dean dust-tip is that both backed NAFTA in 1993--as did Senators Bob Graham and Carol Moseley Braun. While Dean has less claim to the" fair trader" mantle than Gephardt or Kucinich, Kerry's attack will help Dean sell himself to unions as the fallback candidate should Gephardt fade.