Douglas A. Irwin and Amity Shlaes: Democrats Once Did Free Trade
[Mr. Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth, is co-author of "The Genesis of the GATT," just published by Cambridge University Press. This article is excerpted from "Cordell Hull and the Case for Optimism," a working paper published this week by the Council on Foreign Relations, where Ms. Shlaes is a senior fellow.]
The failure of the Doha Round of trade negotiations seven years after its launch does not call for despair. The removal of trade barriers and the reduction of subsidies remain worthwhile objectives, and past experience has shown that difficult multilateral negotiations can be completed. But turning talks into agreements will require leadership that can endure a long, lurching process, without instant success.
Cordell Hull, America's longest serving secretary of state (1933 to 1944), was one such leader. Even today, the Tennessee Democrat should be a model for politicians of all backgrounds.
Hull believed that trade was one of the best ways to prevent a repeat of the carnage of World War I. He wrote: "Though realizing that many other factors were involved, I reasoned that, if we could get a freer flow of trade -- freer in the sense of fewer discriminations and obstructions -- so that one country would not be deadly jealous of another, and the living standards of all countries might rise, thereby eliminating the economic dissatisfaction that breeds war, we might have a reasonable chance for lasting peace."
Removing obstacles to trade was not easy. Congress kept tight control over its ability to write the tariff laws that governed imports of thousands of itemized products. The Republicans ruled the 1920s and were committed to protectionism. Britain turned against free trade and adopted discriminatory imperial preferences. Other countries kept wartime controls on trade in place.
Franklin Roosevelt named Hull secretary of state in 1933, but at first lent scant support to Hull's cause. New Dealers, believing that the government should manage trade and not free it, were suspicious of him. But Hull fought a hard battle to get the administration to propose and Congress to enact the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.
This legislation, a forerunner to what we today call Trade Promotion Authority, authorized the executive branch to undertake trade agreements. It also got Congress out of the business of determining tariffs on an item-by-item basis that bred the infamous Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1930. After the act, Hull traveled to Latin America and negotiated tariff reductions that strengthened the credibility of America's "Good Neighbor Policy."
Hull's efforts to reduce trade barriers were not a big success in his day. Then, as now, Democrats were divided in their support for freer trade. With Europe heading toward war, the secretary of state's initiatives were too little too late...
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The failure of the Doha Round of trade negotiations seven years after its launch does not call for despair. The removal of trade barriers and the reduction of subsidies remain worthwhile objectives, and past experience has shown that difficult multilateral negotiations can be completed. But turning talks into agreements will require leadership that can endure a long, lurching process, without instant success.
Cordell Hull, America's longest serving secretary of state (1933 to 1944), was one such leader. Even today, the Tennessee Democrat should be a model for politicians of all backgrounds.
Hull believed that trade was one of the best ways to prevent a repeat of the carnage of World War I. He wrote: "Though realizing that many other factors were involved, I reasoned that, if we could get a freer flow of trade -- freer in the sense of fewer discriminations and obstructions -- so that one country would not be deadly jealous of another, and the living standards of all countries might rise, thereby eliminating the economic dissatisfaction that breeds war, we might have a reasonable chance for lasting peace."
Removing obstacles to trade was not easy. Congress kept tight control over its ability to write the tariff laws that governed imports of thousands of itemized products. The Republicans ruled the 1920s and were committed to protectionism. Britain turned against free trade and adopted discriminatory imperial preferences. Other countries kept wartime controls on trade in place.
Franklin Roosevelt named Hull secretary of state in 1933, but at first lent scant support to Hull's cause. New Dealers, believing that the government should manage trade and not free it, were suspicious of him. But Hull fought a hard battle to get the administration to propose and Congress to enact the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act of 1934.
This legislation, a forerunner to what we today call Trade Promotion Authority, authorized the executive branch to undertake trade agreements. It also got Congress out of the business of determining tariffs on an item-by-item basis that bred the infamous Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1930. After the act, Hull traveled to Latin America and negotiated tariff reductions that strengthened the credibility of America's "Good Neighbor Policy."
Hull's efforts to reduce trade barriers were not a big success in his day. Then, as now, Democrats were divided in their support for freer trade. With Europe heading toward war, the secretary of state's initiatives were too little too late...