Category Archives: International

If goods do not cross borders, then soldiers will.

It’s an old saying. Maybe even a cliche. But there is some truth to it. What wonderful news, then, that India and Pakistan have re-opened a trade route through the Kashmir region.

Soldiers have been crossing that border for 60 years. Replacing those soldiers with spices, apples, and other, ahem, non-fatal goods will have two positive effects. First, those goods will become cheaper and more abundant in India and Pakistan.

Second, the new trade route will help to strengthen the blossoming but still fragile peace; killing the customer is bad for business. Indians and Pakistani in and around Kashmir are developing a financial incentive to get along.

Expanding international trade is not just good economics. It is good foreign policy. Congress and our next president, whoever he is, would do well to heed that lesson.

There were more street protests in Seoul on Sunday over U.S. beef. The public is scared out of their minds that they’ll get mad cow disease. The domestic beef industry doesn’t like having to face competition. President Lee Myung-bak’s approval rating is lower than President Bush’s. The pending U.S.-Korea free trade agreement is under fire.

Will it pass? The Wall Street Journal Asia, in a standout editorial today, thinks so. The beef outcry is a temporary phenomenon, they believe.

“It’s worth noting that the opposition party hasn’t gained any ground at Mr. Lee’s expense, a sign that the public protests may mask broader support for the free-trade agreement.”

Let’s hope they’re right.

It looks like the impasse on the U.S.-South Korea trade agreement will get worse before it gets better. A mad cow disease scare is reaching epidemic proportions among the Korean public. The beef scare is stalling passage of the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement.

President Lee Myung-Bak has been under heavy fire ever since he decided to lift the 2003 ban on importing U.S. beef. The public outcry climaxed in a 100,000-strong protest over the weekend in Seoul.

Koreans are terrified that eating U.S. beef will give them mad cow disease. They shouldn’t be. I noted in an earlier post that approximately one in 35 million cows slaughtered in the U.S. have mad cow disease. Those odds are negligible; our food supply is safe.

If people still want to be scared, that is their right. No one should force them to buy U.S. beef. But why do they want to take that option away from people who don’t frighten so easily? Especially when $20 billion of increased trade is at stake?

Barack Obama says he would keep in place the 47-year old Cuban trade embargo if elected President. CNN says Obama views the trade restrictions as “leverage to push for democratic change on the island.”

Yes, those sanctions have been awfully effective. Just look at how much more democratic Cuba has become since we began the embargo.

(Pardon the sarcasm.)