The Obama Campaign in 2008 opposed George W. Bush's efforts on behalf of free trade, including the permission of qualified Mexico truck drivers to bring their goods into the United States. The reason was simple: big labor was opposed; in the Mexican case it was the Teamsters.
Now we are experiencing a near collapse of free trade progress and, in the case of the Mexican trucks, strong retaliatory measures by Mexico that, according to the Wall Street Journal, already have cost us $2.6 billion in export trade and some 25,000 jobs.
A dreadful, reactionary trend has set in, with America fighting necessary friends like Brazil and Korea, not to mention our South American allies, Colombia and Panama.
What is Washington thinking?
Well, the Administration fortunately is a bit better than its political stance. The funding restriction against the Mexican truck program (it was merely a pilot program, anyhow) has been dropped in the 2011 budget.
But will Congress get rolled again by the short-sighted unions?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on the case, but it would be gratifying to hear some big business leaders speaking out publicly and forcefully on this topic. Remember the Great Depression? Remember how the Smoot-Hawley Tariff helped cause it? Well, I don't personally remember it, either, but the history books surely do.
