Chicago Daily Observer

Sirs,

Contrary to the impression left by your story on agriculture and trade (“Food Crisis Forces New Look at Farming,” June 10), higher commodity prices do not result in a repeal of the principle of comparative advantage. Trade benefits people and trade distorting subsidies do not. This simple truth seems to have escaped both the “experts” interviewed in the story and those doing the interviews as the story quotes multiple experts complaining that countries like Haiti are no longer self-sufficient in various commodities. But food is no different than any other good. In no case is autarky a welfare-enhancing public policy, as the disastrous example of Albania under communist rule ought to have demonstrated once and for all. Public policies built around subsidizing inefficient producers in agriculture will raise, not lower, the price of food in poor countries and divert scarce resources from other, more productive investments. The problem for ... Read More...

The IMA (Illinois Manufacturers’ Association) is supporting the United States’ possible free-trade pact with Colombia and would like U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Geneva, to consider it as well.

“We want to keep free trade open, especially when huge operations like Caterpillar have struck in this part of the world,” he told the crowd.

“Rep. Foster hasn’t made up his mind on this, and Sen. Dick Durbin hasn’t said a word,” added Baise, a former transportation department secretary for Illinois in Gov. Jim Thompson’s administration, and a former Republican candidate for Illinois state treasurer.

President Bush and the Democratic Congress are locked in fierce conflict over approval of U.S. free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Presumptive presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain hold sharply different views on the merits of free trade and globalization. Whether we’re prepared for it or not, a major national debate on these issues is looming for the fall campaign and beyond.

Meanwhile, our venerable House of Representatives, in the context of the Colombia agreement, has recklessly changed the rules for congressional action on trade legislation. By rejecting long-settled procedures that prevented congressional sidetracking of trade deals negotiated by presidents, the House has hamstrung U.S. trade policy and created the gravest threat to the global trading system in decades.

Back at Ms. Schakowsky’s town meeting a few months ago, when she was trolling for a few moderate votes to head off the Greenie challenge, I asked Ms. Schakowsky whether she was going to support the Colombian Free Trade Agreement. She said no, citing paramilitary actions against union members. (She said nothing about their actions against the FARC narco-terrorists.)

The Republican Challenger for U.S. Senate in Illinois is pushing for the passage for the Columbia Free Trade Agreement. Dr. Steve Sauerberg is running against Incumbent Dick Durbin in November. Speaking from the Embassy Suites in East Peoria Wednesday Sauerberg says the agreement would be a big benefit for the United States. He says without it, companies like Caterpillar, will continue to be unfairly taxed.

Illinois, the home of John Deere and Caterpillar, is one of the great export economies in the United States. Literally tens of thousands of UAW jobs are dependent upon exports from Illinois factories to overseas markets.

So when our Illinois Democratic Congressional delegation claims to be pro-union, I suggest we examine their voting record on one of the most important trade pacts to come before Congress this session.

A free-trade pact with Colombia, a major player in mining industries (and a huge consumer of Illinois Heavy Equipment) was just voted down by a 224–195 margin in the House.

9 Illnois Democrats voted against the deal. Only 1 Democrat, Melissa Bean, voted for it (Bobby Rush was not voting).

So Bill Foster, Jesse Jackson Jr., Rahm Emmanuel, Dan Lipinski, Danny Davis, Jerry Costello, Jan Schakowsky, and Phil Hare…you just voted against Illinois Union Members, Illinois Employers, Illinois Retirees and Illinois ... Read More...

If Jagdish Bhagwati’s purpose in writing his FT column on March 3, Obama’s free-trade credentials top Clinton’s, was to cheer up those who support multilateral free trade and had become dismayed at the avalanche of protectionist drivel from both the Obama and the Clinton camps, he failed.

A group of US and Chinese business people on Wednesday unveiled the first US financial services firm to be co-owned by Chinese interests.

HuaMei Capital Company, as the joint venture firm is known, will be based in Chicago and Beijing, highlighting the growing links between Chinese business and the US Midwest.

It will offer risk management and private equity investment services for US and other investors, as well as for “the growing number of Chinese firms with authority to invest offshore”, its founders said.