Monday, 16 February 2004

Time to get ready to vote for Gary Nolan

Brock rather optimistically wrote below:

The presumptive nominee, John Kerry, deserves credit for voting in favor of NAFTA. I hope he has the courage to stick by what he knows is true: that tariffs and other protectionist measures do more harm to the country than good.

Brock apparently missed tonight’s Democratic debate, in which Kerry virtually repudiated NAFTA by advocating wider use of its environmental and labor side-agreements for protectionist ends—even though, in fairness, he was the best of a horrible field on that score. I’ll let Alex Knapp speak for me on Democrats’ commitment to our nation’s international agreements on trade:

You know, for a bunch of people who criticized Bush for being unilateral on military issues, they sure are eager to act unilaterally in rescinding our international obligations on trade issues. Or does international law not mean anything to these candidates?

Of course, since France is also a highly protectionist country, any issue where we agree with France but repudiate agreements with other countries apparently doesn’t meet the Democratic definition of “unilateral”.