Last Straw

What Goes Around . . .

This very interesting take on free trade from Thomas Friedman makes it official: I will cast my primary ballot for John Kerry. While protectionism sounds good--"Let's keep jobs in America!"--it ignores the reality of a global economy and reinforces the unfortunate idea that we Americans want to have our cake and eat it too. As one of the men in the column, from India, says, "It's unfair that you want all your products marketed globally, but you don't want any jobs to go." To reap the benefits of free trade--and we do--we must be willing to suffer the consequences of competition, just as those in other countries do when they compete with us.

There are better ways for the government to help those whose jobs are leaving these shores than to throw up barriers to trade--financial support, retraining, a far better safety net than the porous one we have now. But the appeal of John Edwards' message on trade must be resisted. If he fails to win the nomination, I hope potential VP candidate Edwards will lay aside his protectionist schemes in favor of more sensible ideas that nominee Kerry supports, like preventing U.S. corporations from engaging in offshore tax evasion.