China gambled on globalization by joining the WTO. Chinese business, particularly its still massively inefficient state companies, will be forced to compete on the world’s terms. It will have to phase out the quotas and subsidies that now protect these cosseted industries. The transition will be difficult, but the Chinese understand one key thing: if they are successful, competition will also make them rich.
On American shores, the prospect of free trade looks even more promising, as fast-track legislation squeaked through the House of Representatives last Thursday, 215 votes to 214. With Senate passage all but assured, Dubya now wields the power Bill Clinton so desired. Fast-track authority will give him the power to negotiate free-trade accords with minimal interference from Congress, which can no longer amend such agreements. It must simply vote yea or nay. The new authority will help the Bush administration push its global-trade agenda, particularly in agriculture and services. The pending bilateral agreements between the United States, Chile and Singapore will doubtless speed ahead, without Congress’s niggling. So will Bush’s hopes to negotiate a free-trade zone for the entire Western Hemisphere by 2005. And any other new deals will likely be far juicier than before. As Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe put it last week: “No countries are going to put their best deals on the line if they think they’re going to be changed by the U.S. Congress.” Now the dealing will begin.
All this is bad news for the anti-globalists. Many wanted to roll back free trade, and now it’s rolling forward. Protectionist countries are also losers. France, for instance, had hoped that lack of U.S. negotiating authority would indefinitely stall any changes in its cherished farm subsidies. And as far as the infamous street protesters are concerned, life will be far less fun. They’ll now be protesting scattered meetings of technocrats negotiating trade details, not spectacular meetings of trade ministers trying to get talks started.
