The story til now: Third World country, in breaking off the shackles of colonial rule, ends up fighting a civil war, with Marxist-Leninist side getting the upper hand. U.S. fights brutal but ultimately unsuccesful war to prevent Communists from getting power. After a couple of decades of self-rule but subsistance economy, this “Communist” country begins to liberalize economy in mimicry of the “Asian tiger” success stories of S. Korea, Singapore, or Taiwan. In turn, the US government encourages its economic turn toward capitalism in all but name (sometimes with that name) by … passing protectionist legislation targeting one of its major exports. This, after attacking another related export.
Brad DeLong’s headline sums it best, “The Bush administration decides to make China and Vietnam a little bit poorer.” Whether from misguided crypto-left mercantilism or craven pork politics (in this case, it’s clearly the latter), such protectionism has pernicious effects, even if it’s boring and repetitious to keep saying that with each new tarriff or agricultural subsidy bill that pops up.
I even wonder if it’s good politics - as Matt Yglesias suggests, there’s something kind of absurd about the whole move.
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