Mr. Gore’s Moment

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

If there were ever a moment for Vice President Gore to get into the presidential race — or at least the national debate — this would be a fine moment. In Monday’s New York Sun, under the headline “Clinton Turns on Clinton on Free Trade,” our Russell Berman reported on the differences between President Clinton and Senator Clinton in respect of trade. President Clinton staked much of his presidency on the North American Free Trade Agreement that he signed into law in 1993. Senator-Who-Wants-To-Be-President said at an AFL-CIO presidential forum in August, “I have said that for many years, that, you know, NAFTA and the way it’s been implemented has hurt a lot of American workers.” When President Clinton was asked directly on Sunday by his former aide, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, whether he agreed with the assessment that the pact had hurt workers, Mr. Clinton replied, “No.”

Now, the two Clintons could battle it out, but, not to put too fine a point on it, a lot of Americans have already seen enough of that drama. And Mr. Clinton can’t run for president, so what’s the point? Particularly since the rifts on the issue are not confined to the Democratic Party. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on a poll it conducted that, it said, found “six in 10 Republicans … agreed with a statement that free trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign imports.” The Journal’s editors, shrewdly, fronted the story under the headline “Republicans Grow Skeptical on Free Trade.”

Enter Vice President Gore. It may seem like ancient history, what with Mr. Gore’s current reputation as an anti-global-warming crusader, but back during the NAFTA debate of the early 1990s, Mr. Gore was one of the Clinton administration’s most credible and effective spokesmen for free trade. It was Mr. Gore’s November 1993 debate against Ross Perot about NAFTA, moderated by Larry King, that reportedly garnered one of the highest ratings in the history of the Cable News Network and that sealed the pact’s approval, days later, in Congress. Aside from his vote for the first Gulf War, it was the Tennessean’s finest hour.

Were Mr. Gore to re-engage today in the debate on trade policy, he’d have plenty of strong arguments to offer. He could point out that the number of American jobs has grown by about 26 million since Mr. Clinton signed NAFTA, to 146 million from 120 million. He could point out that the unemployment rate when Mr. Clinton signed NAFTA in December of 1993 was a seasonally adjusted 6.5% and that there hasn’t been a December since then with an unemployment rate above 6%. The most recently reported rate, for August of 2007, stood at 4.6%. So much for the “giant sucking sound” that Mr. Perot predicted would echo from all the American jobs going to Mexico.

As for the fear that American wages and labor and environmental standards would sink to Mexican levels, Mr. Gore might point out that if that were the effect of NAFTA, we would not see millions of Mexican workers still crossing the border for American jobs. Mr. Gore could point to “The Forgotten Man,” the new history of the Great Depression by Amity Shlaes, which recounts how protectionist tariffs helped get us into the cataclysmic downturn. He might even combine his free trade view with his passion on the climate change issue by warning the Democrat-controlled Congress against its plan to renew the tariff on imported ethanol.

Suppose Mr. Gore doesn’t rise to the occasion. It might be nice to have a Republican carrying the banner of free markets when it comes to trade. But, alas, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Mayor Giuliani, opposed NAFTA back in 1993, telling Newsday at the time, “I continue to be concerned about the effect it would have on the job situation in New York City … I don’t think it would help New York City.” As even Mr. Giuliani would have to admit, the city has done pretty well since 1993. One could argue that its success has had little to do with NAFTA or that it would have done even better without NAFTA. But it will take some acrobatics for Mr. Giuliani to emerge as a champion of free trade — at least in a debate with Mr. Gore.

The trade debate isn’t entirely a clear-cut one. The federal Department of Labor has certified hundreds of thousands of jobless workers as eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits, indicating that their particular jobs had been lost as a result of increased imports, even as the overall American economy has flourished. We share concerns about prison labor and government bans on free trade unions in places like Communist China and Vietnam that are American trading partners. The rule of law in Mexico, and the protection of the right of workers to organize, something this newspaper believes in, falls short of American standards. The way to deal with communist governments is with policies aimed at rolling them back and spreading freedom, not with high tariffs that punish American consumers and, when the inevitable retaliation occurs, American manufacturers and workers. If Mr. Gore doesn’t surface to articulate these arguments in the presidential campaign, here’s hoping someone does.


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use