Bush loves global cooperation in trade Why not when lives are on the line?

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Bush's Quiet Multilateralism

The administration loves global cooperation when it comes to trade. So why can't we try it when lives, and not just lucre, are on the line?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4880290/

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek May 10 issue

- The Bush administration has a secret multilateral side. Did you know that it routinely allows an international organization to make crucial decisions affecting the lives of all Americans? That it allows foreigners—unelected bureaucrats in Geneva!—to overrule laws passed by Congress and signed by the president? No, I haven't gone crazy. This is pretty much the approach taken by the administration to the World Trade Organization. Last week a WTO panel ruled that U.S. cotton subsidies violated international trade rules. Washington will almost certainly appeal the finding. But if the past is any guide, it will also almost certainly abide by the WTO's final decision. All of which, in my view, is exactly right.

The Bush administration has been careful not to undermine the WTO because it understands that if the biggest player on the block doesn't abide by the rules, the entire framework of multilateral trade could be destroyed. Even when the administration has pandered to protectionists, it has done so without overturning the rules of the game. "I know it's fashionable to condemn the Bush administration on trade. But the truth is that it has been extremely good," says Jagdish Bhagwati, one of the world's most distinguished economists and a fervent free-trader. "It's my party, the Democrats, who are embracing voodoo trade policies," he added ruefully, pointing to a number of John Kerry's campaign proposals.

The administration keeps quiet about the reality that trade organizations infringe on a country's sovereignty. NAFTA, for example, provides for tribunals that can overrule American laws and even court decisions. But the American government freely—and after democratic debate—enters into trade deals. In doing so it agrees that, like all other parties to the treaty, it will adhere to certain procedures. The tribunals simply ensure that everyone plays by the rules. Washington can always withdraw from the treaty; it just can't sign on and then break the rules. That is, after all, what the Soviet Union used to do with arms-control treaties.

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The Bush administration accepts the loss of sovereignty on trade, but it rejects it almost everywhere else. For conservatives, trade is somehow different from all other activities. Actually there are lots of areas where an agreement among several countries will produce benefits for all. No one country has an incentive to act alone to tackle environmental problems. But a collective approach would reduce the dangers for all. The same is true of the spread of diseases, which can disrupt countries far away from the places where the virus originates. Again, only a regional or global approach can produce a "win-win" solution.


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