Washington Post | December 7, 2001 | By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post Staff Writer
A one-vote victory in the House of Representatives yesterday kept alive the Bush administration's hope of negotiating new treaties aimed at lower trade barriers around the world -- and with it, the 50-year march toward economic globalization supported by every president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
It was the second time in as many months that the administration pulled a trade rabbit out of the political hat. Last month in Doha, Qatar, U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick, at the last minute, managed to patch together a deal among more than 140 countries to launch a new round of world trade talks after an earlier attempt in Seattle had ended in a spectacular, noisy failure.
In the wake of Seattle, it looked to many as though much of the world had had its fill of globalization. Too many poor countries complained they had gotten too little in the bargain, with all the advantages going to rich countries such as the United States. And even within the rich countries, there were many who felt that all the benefits had gone to big corporations and their investors, leaving behind not only the economic interests of the working class but also cherished values such as environmental protection and social justice.
But Seattle now looks like the high-water mark for the anti-globalization movement. Government and corporate leaders have since taken pains to pay at least lip service to the issues of labor rights, environmental protection and extending the benefits of free trade to the developing world. But while the legislation that passed the House yesterday, for example, requires that labor and environmental issues must be at the "center" of any trade agreement negotiated under the president's "fast track" authority, the vague wording did not satisfy even pro-trade Democrats.
Time has also worn away the veneer of unity among the various anti-globalizers in Seattle. At subsequent trade meetings in Prague and Quebec, union shop stewards from Peoria found themselves uneasily lumped with black-shirted European anarchists and communists. And representatives of developing countries didn't cotton to the idea that their environmental laws would be dictated by the members of the National Wildlife Federation.
As significantly, the tragic events of Sept. 11 have altered the politics of the globalization debate.
In Doha as on the floor of the House yesterday, the president was able to win over reluctant allies by arguing that he needed all the powers he could get -- including broader authority to negotiate new trade treaties -- to hold together the international coalition fighting the war against terrorism.
And since Sept. 11, opponents of globalization have taken pains to tone down their rhetoric to avoid any parallels being drawn between their movement and that of the most violent critic of U.S.-style global capitalism, Osama bin Laden.
But while the forces of globalization may have regained the upper hand, the victories have come at a cost -- and without the kind of political consensus that can serve as a foundation for the future.
"If these votes are, in effect, referenda on globalization, then the closeness of the vote tells us that we are still in the midst of a protracted struggle," said Daniel Tarullo, who served as an international economic adviser to President Bill Clinton.
Tarullo said even those who think the economy benefits overall from more open trade and investment acknowledge that some workers, communities and industries suffer serious harm. But the only time lawmakers work to provide some sort of compensation is in the days and hours leading up to trade votes.
"Without a sustained commitment to dealing with the needs of the losers, I'm afraid many Americans are going to remain skeptical about globalization and come to believe that it's all really for the companies," Tarullo said.
Certainly the overwhelmingly partisan nature of yesterday's House vote does not bode well for easy passage of any trade treaty negotiated under the authority approved.
"They just vaporized whatever was left of bipartisan consensus on trade in the United States," said Lori Wallach, director of Ralph Nader's Global Trade Watch. "I think it will prove a Pyrrhic victory."
"This is hardly a mandate for George Bush or any president to go out there and negotiate new free-trade agreements," said Thea Lee, chief international economist at the AFL-CIO, who lobbied extensively against the fast-track authority. "Any country that now enters into negotiations with the U.S. will know that."
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