Vietnam’s loss, and ours

THE HOST COUNTRY for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is not your father’s Vietnam. Its Ho Chi Minh mausoleum notwithstanding, the Hanoi that President Bush will visit Friday is the capital of a nation that is prospering as a result of its embrace of private enterprise and freer markets. America may have lost the Vietnam War, but American values are slowly winning the peace.

A 2001 bilateral trade deal between Hanoi and Washington helped solidify Vietnam’s reforms, and the country has become the second-fastest-growing economy in Asia after China, not to mention an anchor of stability in a region once renowned for its instability. Vietnam, in short, has been one of the more positive global stories in the last decade, and it remains a nation with strong emotional bonds to the United States.

All of which makes the cavalier rejection by Congress of a trade normalization measure so unconscionable, not to mention embarrassing to the president. Under a relic of the Cold War years, Vietnam’s U.S. trade preferences are subject to annual congressional review; before Vietnam can join the World Trade Organization, that law has to be rescinded. Yet on Monday, the House turned down a measure to do so when it failed to achieve the required two-thirds vote under a procedure that limited debate. Though the bill can be resubmitted under normal procedures, thus requiring only a majority vote to pass, GOP leaders have decided to wait until next month to try again.

The vote sends a disastrous signal to the people of Vietnam (the message being that the superpower that once bombed you isn’t too excited to see you prosper) and to Asian leaders.

Beyond Vietnam, the cause of free trade may be in for a rough time once Democrats take control of both houses of Congress. There are troubling signs that the party’s new protectionist wing will try to torpedo upcoming trade pacts with Peru and Colombia, and stand in the way of progress on a comprehensive deal to lower global trade barriers under the Doha round of WTO talks. Also endangered is Bush’s fast-track trade authority, which allows him to sign trade deals subject only to a yes-or-no vote by Congress. It expires in July.

All of this is unfortunate. Vietnam is far from the only country where free trade has made a profound difference. Open markets create customers for U.S. goods and provide cheap imports for U.S. consumers while improving relations around the world and boosting economies. A successful Doha round would probably do more to relieve poverty in Africa than all the foreign aid doled out to the continent put together.

President Clinton steered the Democratic Party away from protectionism, a move that benefited the party and the nation. Taking a step backward now would only hurt both.