And I believe it could be - something good has begun
I'm thoughtful, is really all.
Free trade is not Good, nor is it Bad. USTR and Herr Bush won't tell you so, but it does lose jobs. Lots of them. It also increases GDP and total trade. And those jobs are going, whether we get anything in the deal or not. Globalization is coming at us, and it's moving a hell of a lot faster than anything happens in a partisan Congress. But how do you convince a democracy to embrace globalization? Lots of the People don't like it because it's their jobs that are going -- they're the ones earning more than they're worth in the global market, and they aren't willing to accept it. And it's their government as much as it's mine. So sure, we could be protectionist. But it's just a people in denial, and denial that shapes their foreign policy, which in turn defines their place in a communicating, trading international arena.
90% of Colombian exports entry the US duty-free already, that's the most ridiculous part. 99.9% of their agricultural products do. There is no US agricultural product that enters Colombia without paying a duty.
How is it that communism is supposed to be the great enemy of American capitalism, yet we're afraid of truly free markets?
Communism is bad because there's no place for the individual -- no personal achievement. We believe in earning what you have in the US. But earning it in the comfortable space so full of resources and prestige we all take for granted. The American dream is one of pure opportunity, no? Freedom to take the world on your own terms. Is it about denying the struggles of doing this in reality, in the larger scheme of people and their systems, political, social, economic, and instead glowing with pride at surviving the kiddy ball pit of the United States?
That was more abstract than I meant it to be. The real point was that it's ironic that we pride ourselves on our competitive system and the strength of the individual in that system, and yet currently refuse to engage in the purest competition available.