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 Business News | October 2007 
Fox Sees Latin America, U.S. Flip-Flop on Free Trade
 Jim Landers - The Dallas Morning News
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| | Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, checks out the view through a camera lens before the start of the Cowboys- Patriots football game Sunday. (John F. Rhodes/DMN) |
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox stopped in Dallas last week on a tour of the United States to sell his memoirs. He cuts a lonely figure as a crusader for economic integration in a country that's lost its political appetite for free trade.
On CNN's Larry King Live show, Mr. Fox was asked about a united Latin America with a single currency.
"Long term, very long term," Mr. Fox responded.
The former leader then backed up to talk about the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, known in Spanish as ALCA (Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas). This was the first big trade idea of Mr. Bush's term and the subject of an all-Americas summit in Quebec.
Mr. Fox blamed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for sabotaging the deal, and certainly the populist of Caracas did much to thwart the agreement.
But the FTAA was an idea too ambitious for the political times.
Brazil and others in South America wanted to get away from trade pacts made on U.S. terms. Brazil's insistence on putting its stamp on things also undermined global trade liberalization talks known as the Doha Round.
Stratfor, an Austin-based foreign policy think tank, recently suggested that Latin America's opposition to free trade with the United States has peaked. It pointed to a referendum this month in Costa Rica that endorsed membership in CAFTA, the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement.
U.S. cools
If Latin America is coming around to Mr. Fox's views, U.S. politicians are going in the other direction. Now that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has called for a review of trade deals already in place, the Democrats running for president have turned out the lights on trade liberalization.
More surprising, a recent poll by The Wall Street Journal and NBC found that six out of 10 Republican voters believe free trade has harmed the economy by reducing demand for domestic goods, wiping out American jobs and bringing in products that may be unsafe.
A wave of toxic imports from China this year bears the blame for the last of those concerns, which suggests even Republicans have lost confidence in the federal government's ability to protect consumers.
The other two concerns about imports erasing demand for U.S. goods and thus U.S. jobs have always colored trade debates. They gain potency in a weak economy. The weakness right now, however, is in the housing sector, one of the few areas of the economy that's immune from import competition.
For the rest, it seems America loves to buy imports but hates to vote for them.
In retirement, Mr. Fox soldiers on. His book, Revolution of Hope: The Life, Faith and Dreams of a Mexican President, argues for a free trade agreement across the Western Hemisphere. As he has since 2000, Mr. Fox supports the idea of a common currency across the Americas.
"That would be long, long term," Mr. Fox told Larry King. "I think the processes to go – first step into – is [the ALCA] trading agreement. And then further on, a new vision, like we are trying to do with NAFTA."
Successor's stand
His successor as president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, is the most prominent supporter of a liberalized labor market across the borders of Mexico and the United States.
Neither of these ideas is going to move forward. They will be stymied in the current U.S. political climate, without even a chance of a hearing on their economic merits.
Right or wrong, good or bad, the least we can do is hear our neighbors out. |
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