University of Columbia economist Jagdish Bhagwati has some pointed comments about the direction of US foreign policy has gone in the past decade.
Second, the credo “Trade, not aid” has given way to the mistaken belief that trade matters less than foreign assistance. The labor constituency, ever fearful of import competition, has undermined trade policy. It has also shifted aid policy in directions that assign priority to areas where the returns to US efforts are relatively minuscule.He goes on to share a conversation he had over ten years ago and it's implication for Free Trade advocates.
In 1999, when the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization erupted into bomb threats and mayhem, I asked then-Director-General Mike Moore whether we ought not to be prepared to die for the great cause of free trade.
I should have said: we ought at least to be prepared to live for it.Between old and new muddle, and the certain prospect that the demolition of each bad idea merely allows others to take root and grow in its place, the task of the free trader is never finished.
