U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky defended the administration’s commitment to free trade in a speech to the media on Saturday. Yes, she said, the U.S. trade imbalance is setting records (the deficit in goods may be $300 billion or more this year). And Barshefsky conceded that the old political consensus in favor of free trade is fracturing, in Europe as well as America. But if words mean anything, it’s hard to paint the trade representative as a closet Smoot or Hawley. Imports, she said, increase choice and competition. She promised that America would not take any action on market access that was inconsistent with WTO rules, and would comply with any decision of a WTO panel. Clinton, she insisted, knows his mind on trade issues, and wants to ““underscore the view that the greatest threat to world prosperity is protectionism.''
Granted, there will always be some who doubt the Clinton administration’s commitment to anything. But Charlene Barshefsky does not have a reputation for speaking with a forked tongue; rather the reverse. Those who think America is about to slide into protectionism might, once in a while, listen to what she says.
