Trade: Don’t Hold the Fries

McDonald’s restaurants in Santiago, Chile, buy their French fries from Mexico. Chilean pharmacies sell asthma medicines imported from Canada. U.S. businesses cannot compete because they must pay the Chilean government an 8% tariff on everything they sell to the nation on South America’s western shore, while a free-trade agreement lets Mexican and Canadian industries peddle their products without charge.

For seven years now the United States and Chile have been trying to talk out a similar arrangement--a ninth round of discussions ended Tuesday. But the deals always get bogged down by labor lobbyists, environmental activists or other interested parties working through Congress.

Today, the House of Representatives should approve a bill sponsored by Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield) that grants President Bush authority to negotiate trade deals without Congress tinkering with the details until the terms unravel or the involved parties die of boredom. The arrangement provided by the bill is called trade promotion authority or fast-track authority. It lets Congress approve or reject trade agreements negotiated by the White House but not modify them.

Eliminating opportunities for muddling trade deals would help the U.S. regardless of geography, but Chile makes a particularly persuasive example. As the first Latin American country to adopt a free-market economy, it stands as a model for the region.

Bilateral trade between the U.S. and Chile is modest, around $6.7 billion. Yet, even with tariffs in place the U.S. sells more to Chile’s 15 million people than to Indonesia’s 228 million and almost the same amount as to India with its 1 billion.

A free-trade pact with Chile would show other countries in the hemisphere the huge benefits of putting their economic houses in order: unimpeded access to the biggest and richest market in the world. And Idaho potatoes would finally stand a chance of winding up in Santiago’s deep fryers.