Crossposted at
NotGeniuses.com
President Bush, faced with slumping poll numbers over his handling of the economy, presented himself as a champion of free trade on Tuesday in a speech that warned of "isolationists" threatening U.S. economic strength and job growth.
In remarks that seemed aimed at Democratic critics, including his presidential challenger John Kerry, the Republican president who once imposed tariffs on steel imports criticized those in the United States who he said doubted the country's ability to compete in world markets.
"There are economic isolationists in our country who believe we should separate ourselves from the rest of the world by raising up barriers and closing off markets. They're wrong," Bush said...
I'd call this a sick joke except that Bush's trade policies are just as lethal as do those policies linked to his lies about Iraq.
The chaos in Haiti over the past decade have evidenced this fact, as this excellent excerpt from Chom's latest essay documents (read the
whole thing, it's juicy)
A 1995 USAID report explained that the "export-driven trade and investment policy" that Washington imposed will "relentlessly squeeze the domestic rice farmer," who will be forced to turn to agroexport, with incidental benefits to US agribusiness and investors. Despite their extreme poverty, Haitian rice farmers are quite efficient, but cannot possibly compete with US agribusiness, even if it did not receive 40% of its profits from government subsidies, sharply increased under the Reaganites who are again in power, still producing enlightened rhetoric about the miracles of the market. We now read that Haiti cannot feed itself, another sign of a "failed state."
A few small industries were still able to function, for example, making chicken parts. But US conglomerates have a large surplus of dark meat, and therefore demanded the right to dump their excess products in Haiti. They tried to do the same in Canada and Mexico too, but there illegal dumping could be barred. Not in Haiti, compelled to submit to efficient market principles by the US government and the corporations it serves.
One might note that the Pentagon's proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer, ordered a very similar program to be instituted there, with the same beneficiaries in mind. That's also called "enhancing democracy." In fact, the record, highly revealing and important, goes back to the 18th century. Similar programs had a large role in creating today's third world. Meanwhile the powerful ignored the rules, except when they could benefit from them, and were able to become rich developed societies; dramatically the US, which led the way in modern protectionism and, particularly since World War II, has relied crucially on the dynamic state sector for innovation and development, socializing risk and cost.
Crossposted at NotGeniuses.com
