Obama's Tire Tariff

Irwin Stelzer writes in the Weekly Standard that President Obama's bad decision to slap punative tariffs on imported tires is bad news for world trade.

So picture this. Obama now has to play host to a very angry Chinese President Hu Jintao, among other world leaders, in Pittsburgh, to all of whom he promised not to repeat the beggar-thy-neighbor protectionist policies that extended the Great Depression. He needs the Chinese to continue buying the IOUs he is pouring onto the market to cover the deficits he is running up, and to allow their currency to appreciate relative to the sinking dollar. Hu needs export-based jobs. The Obama charm might just not be enough to send the Chinese president home in a generous mood, or disinclined to continue his ruminations on how to free the world of the dominance of the dollar.

Obama's decision on tires makes it clear that he has no intention of supporting efforts to revive the almost 8-year-old Doha trade-opening negotiations. Some 36 nations met in New Delhi earlier this month and professed interest in completing a deal by the end of next year. Not likely: the recession has made jobs, jobs, jobs politicians' central concern, and few are prepared to take the flak that will surely arise if they open their markets, and expose even a few domestic companies or farmers to job-destroying competition. The talks collapsed in July of 2008 precisely for that reason. Obama has been sitting on proposals for bilateral free trade agreements with Colombia and Korea, among others, and sees no reason to antagonize the strong, protectionist wing of his party, already unhappy with his failure -- so far - to throw his weight behind a bill that would end the secret ballot in union-recognition elections, and require compulsory arbitration when union-management negotiations break down.

Let's hope President Obama is content to repeat President Bush's mistakes, and not President Hoover's.