The Wall Street Journal tells us this morning that Sen. Hillary Clinton has apparently said she would not support the so-called "free trade" deal with South Korea. This is an important position -- with a caveat.
Here are the key parts of the Journal story:
In a fresh sign of Democratic unease with free trade, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton signaled opposition to a deal that would tighten economic ties between the U.S. and South Korea.
And....
Sen. Clinton chose to announce her opposition to the South Korea deal at a town hall meeting organized by the AFL-CIO in Michigan, a traditional battleground state in presidential politics and home to the U.S. auto industry.
Sen. Clinton said the deal doesn't go far enough in dismantling barriers to trade in autos, citing trade statistics showing that South Korea exports more than 500,000 cars annually to the U.S., while American auto makers sell only 6,000 a year in South Korea.
"While I value the strong relationship the United States enjoys with South Korea, I believe that this agreement is inherently unfair," she said Saturday in Detroit. "It will hurt the U.S. auto industry, increase our trade deficit, cost us good middle-class jobs and make America less competitive."
This is certainly a good thing and Clinton should be applauded for, apparently, indicating she will vote against the deal. John Edwards was first to declare that he would oppose the South Korea deal. But, nothing has been heard from Barack Obama, nor the other presidential candidates on the South Korea deal (I'm assuming Kucinich will oppose the deal since he has been the most consistent opponent of so-called "free trade").
People who criticize Sen. Clinton need to recognize when she has taken the right position and applaud her.
There is a caveat to her apparent position--and the positions of any other candidates who are now declaring their opposition to so-called "free trade" because support for such deals is not polling well among Americans. Until candidates reject the very concept of so-called "free trade," we still have a long way to go. The problem isn't that the so-called "free trade" agreement with South Korea, or other countries, is out of balance, as Sen. Clinton seems to indicate in her statement. The fundamental problem is the basic underpinnings of so-called "free trade."
I know I've made this point before but it bears repeating at every juncture: "free trade" does not exist. It is a marketing phrase -- a marketing phrase that actually is beginning to fail, if the prime goal of marketing is to convince an audience of the desirability of a product. Every so-called "free trade" agreement (I have read them) is chock full of protections and exceptions for capital and investors. These deals are actually quite intricate managed trade agreements -- managed for the interests of large corporations and very rich investors. The underlying dynamic for so-called "free trade" is simple: drive wages down as low as possible and allow maximum protection for capital and investment.
Until we have politicians who are willing to speak this truth, then, opposition to specific so-called "free trade" agreements, while important and laudable, will not right a huge injustice being played out around the world.