How Long Does a Free-Trade Agreement Need to Be?
"Various proponents of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) posit that some trade is better than no trade. While that is arguably true in terms of marginal units, these politically crafted bilateral and multilateral agreements should really be called Some Trade, More Trade, or Kinda Free agreements, but certainly not Free Trade.
Better yet, to accurately reflect their true nature, all of them should be called Managed Trade because on each page within every agreement are quotas, stipulations, and byzantine clauses that rival the federal tax code. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (21)
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons to oppose Managed Trade Agreements is that they give genuine Free Trade a bad name and thus allow anti-free-marketers to gain a foothold against genuine free trade.
Published: July 2, 2008 8:43 AM
ON a related point, I have just learnt that
British American Tobacco Uganda (BATU) has been ordered to pay over $1m to tobacco farmers as compensation for failure to buy their crop.
So it seems in the tobacco business, on one side of the world you get hit with class action suits for selling the stuff to willing consumers, and on the other you get hit for NOT buying it. O the irony!
I think this example sums up all market interventions everywhere - absurd contradictions piled up, one upon the other
Published: July 2, 2008 9:12 AM
ON a related point, I have just learnt that
British American Tobacco Uganda (BATU) has been ordered to pay over $1m to tobacco farmers as compensation for failure to buy their crop.
So it seems in the tobacco business, on one side of the world you get hit with class action suits for selling the stuff to willing consumers, and on the other you get hit for NOT buying it. O the irony!
I think this example sums up all market interventions everywhere - absurd contradictions piled up, one upon the other
Published: July 2, 2008 9:14 AM
"Regulated trade between the individuals, companies, and institutions within our respective countries will be illegal henceforth."
It's a great Act II. But first, you'd need Act I:
"Regulated trade between the individuals, companies, and institutions within our own soveriegn nation will be illegal henceforth."
The problem with free trade between individuals of different nations approaches the same problem that lives at the interface between states and the feds with the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. What is legal intrastate becomes illegal by virtue of the fact that it *might* become interstate. If we ever truly got "free trade" then what might be legal by treaty would implicitly become illegal because such trade would be illegal within one or both lands.
Free trade is only possible between two jurisdictions that are already free. In transactional analysis, you have to check your interface boundary and make sure it has integrity, and make sure sure accountability is ensured on both sides. The framers failed to do this with the interstate commerce clause, resulting in all kinds of breakages in the past 220ish years.
For the same reasons, a real free trade agreement is nigh impossible at this late date, even if the wording of the agreement were to approach what you have above.
Published: July 2, 2008 10:31 AM
Well, if BATU had a contract with those farmers to buy their crop at the end of the year, BATU should pay compensation for unilateraly breaking the contract.
On the issue of american beef in Korea, as well as american GM foods in England or Europe, they shouldn't be prohibited by law, but, at the same time, consumers who want to know the provenance of their food and make their choices based on that shouldn't be deceived. Be free to sell it, but let them choose freely whether they want to buy it, I say.
Published: July 2, 2008 10:42 AM
in 2005 we australians signed a "free trade agreement" with the us. so free was this accord, that it ran to one thousand pages.
Published: July 2, 2008 10:54 AM
jaqphule's Act I and Act II need to be Acts II and III.
Act I should be finding a way to get rid of the most freely traded commodity in the world -- the will of the US Federal government. HeSheIt with enough FRN's can purchase whatever is wanted or needed.
Elimination of government by special interest is needed for reasons other than free trade as well.
Published: July 2, 2008 11:32 AM
I'm apparently not the only one who needs to know how to avoid double posting of comments!
Published: July 2, 2008 11:40 AM
J D,
I agree that it's a problem, but not necessarily that it's Act I. Let me beat about the dubya for a few moments to get to why:
I have this somewhat wacky idea that, much like the theory of conservation of energy, the ability to affect change by human action -- call it "power" -- is conserved just as well. The power in society is made up of the aggregate economic and political choices that are available in their respective marketplace.
When the balance of power tilts political, economic choices decline, and so does the power of the J. Random Citizen who has no political power.
When the balance of power tilts economic, without changing the total power in the system, politicians lose power.
Power can only be *created* on the economic side, but consumed by either side. On the downside, when economic power is increased by creation, political power tends to increase just to keep it all balanced.
So really, if Washington is really the modern seat of the Hoooor of Babylon, it's really a side effect of the balance of power gone wonky. If you free trade, really and truly, then the ability to trade favors for silver certificates in lots of thirty will decrease, as night follows day. It might not be obvious, it might take time, and it may not be easy to track the chain of cause and effect from one to the other, but it would come.
Published: July 2, 2008 1:26 PM
It needs to be zero bytes long.
Published: July 2, 2008 1:50 PM
No, George, at zero bytes, it's a blank slate for anyone to imprint their own stamp on it.
Terseness fails. See where it got us on the second amendment? Nobody knows how to interpret the damn thing!
Published: July 2, 2008 2:06 PM
Harry Browne used to talk about this. He felt that one sentence was enough:
No forceful (i.e. government) interference between any two consenting parties engaging in any trade.
That's about it. Anything else is NOT free trade, it's coercion and how can that be free, Mr. Orwell?
Published: July 2, 2008 2:37 PM
How the Koreans can vote with their pockets --if there is no mandatory labeling to avoid US beef from other beef?
I guess they can avoid beef altogether.
Published: July 2, 2008 3:32 PM
Carlos, that almost reads like a lightbulb joke.
How many "free trade" regulators does it take to screw up the international lightbulb market?
Just one.
But how many do we have again???
Published: July 2, 2008 4:32 PM
More of the same. With no sensible definition of a "free market" there can be no sensible definition of "free trade".
Published: July 2, 2008 8:01 PM
How about "absence of force" as definition of "free"?
Or to elaborate: voluntary exchanges between parties, unrestricted by third parties.
Published: July 3, 2008 3:09 AM
To "Free Market Phooey"
Here is something for your Phoo-Brain to digest...idiot.
http://tinyurl.com/6k3asv
Published: July 3, 2008 12:13 PM
defining,
"absence of force" doesn't work. Every "free market" I have seen touted involves force to prevent young citizens from accessing a fair share of natural resources.
Jake,
Calling someone an idiot and posting a link is a very unconvincing way to argue. You might not like my name, but what I say is truth.
Published: July 3, 2008 6:50 PM
The protectionists (such as those student activists and others protesting in the Republic of Korea) do not oppose free trade deals because they are "managed" (i.e. hundreds of pages long and so on), they oppose them because they are not "managed" enough. The activists should simply be told that if they do not want to buy American beef they do not have to - but they should not be allowed to use force (i.e. a government ban) to prevent other people from buying beef from American farmers.
There is a myth that if (for example) NAFTA was just a one line treaty "There shall be free trade between people in Canada the United States and Mexico" opposition to it would be reduced - actually there would be even more opposition to such a one line treaty (although I would support a move to such a one line agreement anyway).
Trying to make common cause with foes of NAFTA (or the Colombia free trade agreement, or......) on the grounds that we both oppose the hundreds of pages of regulations ...... is a mistake. A mistake that the writer of the article thankfully does NOT make.
Published: July 4, 2008 2:42 AM
To "Free Market Phooey":
Quite the contrary. I like your name, because it equates to idiot. Here's another helpfull link.
http://tinyurl.com/3pwu
Published: July 4, 2008 2:57 AM
How Long Does a Free-Trade Agreement Need to Be?
As long as a handshake and the mutual agreement to act in a trustworthy manner.
No intervention necessary!
Published: July 4, 2008 10:53 AM