Clintons Disagree on Colombian Free Trade
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Billary, EconomyIn an odd twist, Hillary Clinton’s campaign has admitted that Bill Clinton supports the Colombian Free Trade Agreement that Senator Clinton stridently opposes. Either the former president, after a career of free trade advocacy, decided even he couldn’t flip flop with a straight face OR this is a cunning political strategy.
The Clinton presidency brought us NAFTA and that fact has been hard for Hillary Clinton to shake. However, by revealing their differences of opinion on the Colombia deal, they make Hillary appear to be the more protectionist of the Clintons and thus more acceptable to a base of voters who blame such agreements for job losses. The fact that the Clintons have taken the time to announce the disagreement makes the whole thing seem more like a ploy than an earnest disagreement of opinion.
Both Democratic candidates have made anti- free trade demagoguery a signature part of their campaigns, willfully distorting facts in an attempt to make voters think fixing a few international agreements will suddenly bring back lost jobs. The Clinton disagreement on the Colombia deal (which isn’t perfect, mind you) is just another example of the Clinton campaign trying to present the senator as a protectionist.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 and is filed under Billary, Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:23 am
its COLOMBIA! Pretty basic if you are actually writing an article on the country. Great credibility.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:27 am
Gah, protectionism is so stupid. Why do people still believe in it? Denouncing free trade is like denouncing evolution except worse because actual policy is affected.
Why can’t candidates say “I know you’re feeling insecure right now, but free trade makes us all better off. We need to find real ways to create jobs and embrace competition instead of burying our heads in the sand and cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world” or something to that effect.
Off topic: These captchas are really annoying. It’s so hard to figure them out sometimes. Is there no better way to prevent spam?
April 9th, 2008 at 11:11 am
I fess up to totally screwing the colOmbia thing. Thanks to Justin for correcting it. I’ve actually caleld other people out for the same mistake in the past, so I getting double idiot points for this one. My apologies for the temporary error.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
I agree with Nelson that protectionism as an economic policy is stupid, because it doesn’t help the general economy, but holds it back. For someone working in a sector shielded from competition through protectionism however, it’s not stupid at all, but in their best interest, at least in the short to medium run. They’re not being stupid, they’re being selfish.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Jack,
At least write something new as you try to spread your hillary propaganda. The thing is no one believes you. Just stop. Please. She lost.
Best,
John
April 9th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
What Nelson above says is wrong. David Ricardo and comparative advantage only goes so far. All parties gaining only happens under some circumstances, not all. At a point the money simply shifts from one place to another, i.e., from here to there. At that point what is wrong with protectionism. The word has been so tossed around and vilified you’d think it had only four letters. At this point who are we advocating protecting if we are protectionists? Obviously … me, my kids, you, your kids, and yes …Nelson and Nelson’s kids. Makes sense to me. Our foreign made DVD players and LCD screens are little more than cheap beads and trinkets. Lets not trade-in Manhattan for what we paid for it.