Trade And Consequences (TomPaine.com)

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Trade And Consequences
Glenn Hurowitz
May 18, 2007


Glenn Hurowitz, who runs www.democraticcourage.com, is the author of the forthcoming book Fear and Courage in the Democratic Party.

In their rush to prove that they could pass significant legislation and conclude a deal with President Bush on trade, it seems that Democrats forgot to consider the crippling political consequences of their last bipartisan pursuit of a trade deal: the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement.

From the get-go, the pursuit of NAFTA was damaging to Democrats in general and President Clinton in particular. With pro-labor and pro-environment congressional Democrats lined up against business oriented New Democrats in their own caucus and the White House, the treaty precipitated poisonous intra-party strife that got in the way of other parts of President Clinton’s agenda. From a tactical perspective, it was even worse: labor unions were telling the White House that while they would prefer to spend their war chest to build support for universal health care, they were prepared to spend it instead on beating NAFTA.

Clinton ultimately eked out a narrow victory on NAFTA, and many pundits initially deemed it smart politics: Clinton got a short-term boost in his approval ratings and showed that he was strong enough and skilled enough to defy the Democratic leadership in Congress. “He stood up against his two prime constituents, labor and the environment, to drive it home over their dead bodies,” American Express chairman James Robinson was quoted saying in a 2000 book by journalist James MacArthur.

But there were serious long-term consequences to leaving two of your best constituencies “dead.”

Labor was so angry about NAFTA that it cut off its contributions to the DNC for six months. This dealt a fatal blow to the Clintons’ efforts to raise the $10 million they wanted to finance an advertising and grassroots campaign in support of health care reform. And despite everything Clinton had done to help big corporations pass NAFTA, big business made clear that their gratitude didn’t extend to helping the DNC with the health care drive (though corporations like American Express and General Electric did slightly boost their giving to Democrats in the elections). As a result, the Democrats were seriously outmatched when the health care industry started running their infamous Harry and Louise ads against health reform, contributing to the defeat of Clintoncare. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/05/18/trade_and_consequences.php