It looks obvious

The coming election, and the populistic nature of political campaigns, focus some public interest about NAFTA and more recently about the trade agreement with Columbia. Voicing loud demand for protectionism, hoping to win the vote of specific interest groups, ignoring the simple reality that:

Producers exist to satisfy consumers; production is the means and consumption is the end. Protectionism is a policy built on the premise that consumers exist to satisfy producers.

As a side note - I’m not in favor of these trade agreements as well but not because I think that the government need to protect the “American Workers” or inefficient manufacturers but because I don’t think that the government should have role in free trade, beside of protecting it. Therefore the government role is to remove barriers, tariffs etc. as a general practice and not only when it granting political favors to satisfy other interests.

I was wondering how Clinton can maintain her populist rhetoric against the trade agreement with Columbia while her spouse actively support it and financially benefit from it. The answer is simple - postpone the voting until nobody will notice:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the House will change its rules so as to skirt a requirement that it vote on a free trade agreement with Colombia.

Pelosi says the House will vote on the rules change policy Thursday, effectively putting off a vote on a free trade agreement that is a key priority of the Bush administration.

I don’t argue that this is unique for Clinton. Postponing the vote benefits Obama as well. It is a common practice, which we usually fall for every time. It is only make election debates useless process and make me wonder why bother at all.

The little irony is that I’m not a great fun of trade agreement at all. Although not because I believe in protectionism, quite the contrary - I don’t think that the state should be involve in trade.