Free trade democrats, R.I.P. (1934-2005)

Beginning with the passage of the 1934 Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, there has always been a signifcant contingent of Democrats who supported the expansion of foreign trade — even when Republicans were mostly protectionist. That was then. Jonathan Weisman documents the death of the free trade Democrat in the Washington Post:

Twelve years ago, amid heated rhetoric over job losses and heavy union pressure, the House passed the North American Free Trade Agreement with 102 Democratic votes. This month, as President Bush pushes the far less economically significant Central American Free Trade Agreement, he will be lucky to get more than 10. A long, slow erosion of Democratic support for trade legislation in the House is turning into a rout, as Democrats who have never voted against trade deals vow to turn their backs on CAFTA. The sea change — driven by redistricting, mounting partisanship and real questions about the results of a decade’s worth of trade liberalization — is creating a major headache for Bush and Republican leaders as they scramble to salvage their embattled trade agreement. A trade deal that passed the Senate last Thursday, 54 to 45, with 10 Democratic votes, could very well fail in the House this month. But the Democrats’ near-unanimous stand against CAFTA carries long-term risks for a party leadership struggling to regain the appearance of a moderate governing force, some Democrats acknowledge. A swing toward isolationism could reinforce voters’ suspicions that the party is beholden to organized labor and is anti-business, while jeopardizing campaign contributions, especially from Wall Street…. Cardin and other free-trade Democrats concede that many of the Democratic opponents are motivated by partisan politics: They want to see Bush lose a major legislative initiative or, at the very least, make Republicans from districts hit hard by international trade take a dangerous vote in favor of a deal their constituents oppose. Dozens of Republicans in districts dependent on the textile industry, the sugar growers or small manufacturers have already said they will vote against the bill. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) privately warned Democrats last month that a vote for CAFTA is a vote to stay in the minority…. Such fears are not new, but the political response to them — especially from Democrats — is unprecedented. That has pro-business Democrats worried. During the 1990s, party leaders used pro-trade positions to show moderate voters and business interests they are willing to stand up to their labor union backers and govern from the center, said Marshall Wittmann of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. For fear of handing their GOP adversaries a short-term victory, he said, they are jeopardizing all that work. “If the Democrats want to stay competitive on the national political stage, they can’t retreat from global engagement,” McCurdy agreed. “I really believe our challenge is to be competitive and win in the world economy, and it’s hard to assume national leadership if you have a protectionist bent,” said Al From, the Leadership Council’s chief executive. Administration officials are inoculating themselves against Democratic attacks with a letter from former president Jimmy Carter imploring support for CAFTA. “Some improvements could be made in the trade bill, particularly on the labor protection side,” Carter wrote, “but, more importantly, our own national security and hemispheric influence will be enhanced” by passage. Other Democratic supporters include a who’s who list from the Clinton administration, including former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger and Cabinet members Warren M. Christopher, Henry G. Cisneros, Dan Glickman, William J. Perry and Donna E. Shalala, not to mention the presidents of the CAFTA countries.

Look, CAFTA is not perfect, and if you read the article in its entirety, you’ll see it wasn’t only Democrats behaving badly. However, neither of those points negates the fact that this trade deal is a no-brainer in terms of both economics and foreign policy. UPDATE: See Matthew Yglesias (nay) and Tyler Cowen (mostly yea) for further commentary on CAFTA. Yglesias’ two primary objections to CAFTA are that the agreement “is an effort to impose low labor standards and a misguided intellectual property regime on Central American nations.” The first objection is, well, horses**t — CAFTA doesn’t force the Central American countries to lower their labor standards. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the excessive IPR argument – but click here to read a Chicago Tribune editorial about why the “Brazilian solution” preferred by Tyler doesn’t necessarily work well either. ANOTHER UPDATE: In the comments, Steve points out that Republicans control all the branches of government, so why blame the Dems? Brad Setser points out that Republicans have been acting protectionist with regard to the proposed CNOCC takeover of Unocal. Daniel Gross makes this point on his blog as well:

Weisman buries the lede. We wouldn’t have such pieces, or have such conversations, if the Republicans — who won the Congressional elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004 on free-trade platforms — could maintain discipline on free trade.

So am I unfairly bashing Dems? In a word, no. True, the Republicans currently control the executive and legislative branches — however, the same was true of the Democrats when NAFTA was under debate. Because of Democratic defections, however, the Clinton administration needed the cooperation and support of Republican leaders to secure its passage — and Clinton got that support (indeed, if memory serves, more Republicans voted for NAFTA than Democrats). Nancy Pelosi sure as hell ain’t playing that game today. And while it’s undoubtedly true that one can point to protectionist Republicans who are members of Congress, one can’t say that the entire party is behaving in a protectionist manner. That’s no longer true of Congressional Democrats. YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Brad DeLong asserts that I’m misreading the Weisman story: “Drezner’s wrong. And the story he cites does not say what he claims it says. It does not say that free-trade Democrats are gone.” He thinks the relevant sections of the Post story are as follows:

1) “[A] core group of as many as 50 pro-trade Democrats are voting against CAFTA…. They complain that the administration failed to consult them during negotiations, taking their votes for granted. And they say past trade agreements were accompanied by increased support for worker-retraining programs, education efforts and aid to dislocated workers — support that the president has not provided.” 2) “[O]pponents say the deal steps back from previous commitments to stronger environmental and labor standards.” 3) “Republicans intentionally marginalized free-trade Democrats during negotiations and then presented them with a take-it-or-leave it deal, goading them to oppose it, said the lobbyists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

My response:

1) Trade Adjustment Assistance was reformed in 2002 — it’s not clear to me you want to reform it again before seeing how the first set of reforms do, and three years isn’t enough time to take its temperature. Plus, from a policymaking perspective, creating deal-specific trade adjustment assistance don’t make much sense. 2) The best way to improve labor and environmental conditions in CAFTA countries is for them to achieve middle income status and generate domestic constituencies for both. Linking trade to standards won’t necessarily accomplish this as well as expanding trade, which is CAFTA’s point. 3) If memory serves, Clinton didn’t exactly consult with the Republicans when the NAFTA side agreements on labor and the environment were hammered out (though I’m happy to be corrected on this if I’m wrong). The question boils down to whether the perfect is the enemy of the pretty good.

Two final points. First, while I didn’t address these points head-on in my original post, it was very cute of DeLong to elide my statement that, “if you read the article in its entirety, you’ll see it wasn’t only Democrats behaving badly.” Second, let’s say DeLong is correct — Clinton got 102 Democratic votes for NAFTA in the House, and then only 73 Democratic votes with the China WTO vote. At present, there is a whopping total of “50 pro-trade Democrats” in the House now. No matter how you slice it, that’s not an encouraging trend line. [Maybe free trade Congressional Democrats aren’t dead — they’re just in a persistent vegetative state!–ed. Don’t go there.] I’ll have more to say about CAFTA soon.