Trade: The Bridge From Guns to Butter : U.S. public opinion on foreign policy priorities may be emerging

Do Americans know what they want from U.S. foreign policy?

A fascinating Times Mirror poll released last month suggested that U.S. public opinion is quite unsettled on this point. Even more remarkable, perhaps, was the scarcely more formed consensus among the nation’s influentials--the so-called “chattering class” of intellectuals and policy leaders. But now a new Los Angeles Times poll is suggesting the emergence of a central tenet of post-Cold War foreign policy among the public: the need for strong world trade and a competitive U.S. economy.

In that poll of 1,612 adults nationwide, fully 24% of respondents cited “trade/economic competition” as “the most important internationalproblem facing the United States today.” That percentage was more than double the figure for the next closest issue, Bosnia.

No doubt the high drama of Congress’ vote last month on the North American Free Trade Agreement helped to raise consciousness about world trade. And the extraordinary selling job that President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Ambassador Mickey Kantor and other Administration officials did on behalf of NAFTA is a tribute to the power of America’s secular bully pulpit--the White House--in getting people’s attention.

As a focal point for a new American foreign policy, an emphasis on world trade is not bad. And it’s certainly not bad at all for California, which if it were a nation would be one of the world’s leading export countries. “Where can California look for growth, to new markets and opportunities?” asks Edward E. Leamer, a UCLA economics professor, reflecting on the importance to the state of successful international trade agreements. “The answer is the Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia, Latin America. Agreements such as GATT are extremely important.”

For their part, U.S. trade negotiators, struggling to nail down a GATT deal by the Wednesday deadline, claim that GATT, if signed and implemented, would add no less than $1 trillion in goods and services to the U.S. economy over the next decade. The implications for California, which now accounts for something on the order of 15% of the total U.S. economy, are obvious. And staggering.

This state is dragging down the U.S. recovery--and no one knows it better than the Clinton Administration, which was right to bet just about everything but the farm on NAFTA. And we are lucky to have as dogged a trade negotiator as Kantor pushing for GATT in Geneva. Giving prominence to international trade and the lowering of barriers to make the world economy more efficient--that’s a terrific place to start for a post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy.