Now we turn to Obama’s stance on free trade.  Obama happens to fit very nicely into our taxonomy of views on trade.  He falls into the category of people that recognizes the benefits of free trade but is wary of the process by which trade achieves its ends.  Obama is a member of the CMOS wing and the CMAT wing of free-traders.  A proponent of cave mercatem and meeting our standards and assisted trade as described in an earlier post.  Obama’s believes that a myriad of standards should be prerequisites to existing and future trade pacts.  He labels his brand of free-trade as “fair-trade.”  [Read more →]

Now it is time to classify McCain’s position on trade.  As stated previously, McCain is a free trader.  The question becomes, how do we classify his outlook to free trade in our newly minted taxonomy?  McCain is a Messianic Free Trader, minus the messianic.  In typical McCain fashion, he bucks classification.  (Of course, you have to wonder whether Lawrence purposefully constructed the taxonomy in order for this to happen.)  He is not a Messianic Free Trader, but he is also not a proponent of Cave Mercatem.  He does not propose restricting free trade with labor or environmental standards.  What he does do is more subtle. [Read more →]

Before we can compare McCain and Obama’s positions on trade, we have to give some background on the trade debate.  There are a whole slew of positions that people take on trade issues.  These stances arise from differing viewpoints on the effect that trade has on everything from growth, wages, the environment, labor standards and unemployment rates.  Let’s lay it all out there.

There are several kinds of “free-traders” in the political world. [Read more →]

According to John McCain’s website:

Ninety-five percent of the world’s customers lie outside our borders and we need to be at the table when the rules for access to those markets are written. To do so, the U.S. should engage in multilateral, regional and bilateral efforts to reduce barriers to trade, level the global playing field and build effective enforcement of global trading rules.

It seems Senator McCain is a proponnent of free trade.  There is a great deal of consternation with regards to free trade, so for McCain to propose a reduction in barriers to trade, he must have good reason.  What are his motivations? Is Senator McCain an ardent free-trader or simply paying the subject lip service? [Read more →]