by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 27, 1997

When the U.S. merchandise trade deficit came in at near $190 billion last year, free traders had a ready retort: Trade deficits don’t matter!

Well, we’re about to find out.

Since summer, stocks have crashed and burned in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and even mighty Hong Kong. In all except Hong Kong (at this writing), the currencies have been cut free of the dollar and plummeted.

What will become of these nations? We need only look at Mexico.

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 23, 1997

“African Brothers in Spirit” ran the caption over a photo of a beaming Nelson Mandela holding hands with a smiling Moammar Qaddafi. On entering Tripoli, Mandela’s 50-car motorcade passed under a banner reading: “Mandela’s visit to Libya is a devastating blow to America.”

What about U.S. objections to his visiting a nation now under U.N. sanctions for its role in the massacre of American school kids on Pan Am 103, Mandela was asked. In defiance, Mandela bared his contempt: “Those who say I should not be here are without morals. I am not going to join them in their lack of morality.”

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 20, 1997

For the Theodore Roosevelt Big Stick Award for 1997, permit me to nominate Harold Creel of the Federal Maritime Commission.

Fed up with Japan’s refusal to pay $4 million in fines, Creel last Thursday ordered all U.S. ports closed to Japanese ships. The Coast Guard was to carry out Creel’s embargo. On Friday, a stunned Japan capitulated, accepting U.S. demands to halt the harassment of U.S. shipping in Japanese harbors, which had caused the crisis. Creel’s escalation worked.

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 16, 1997

In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” the document is found where no one thought to look, “full in the view of every visitor,” right before their eyes. As Janet Reno’s agents burrow bravely through the history of the Pendleton Act to see if White House phone solicitations are illegal, the real Clinton scandal is staring them right in the face. In the latest batch of videos released by the White House is one from a May 21, 1996, lunch. In it, Bill Clinton’s explains what all the money contributed by the heavy hitters and high rollers went to buy:

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 13, 1997

The IMF has become the 911 number immediately
called in times of trouble by such champions of free
markets as Citicorp and Goldman, Sachs. With all that
IMF money, the Thailands and Mexicos are spared the
consequences of their fiscal incompetence, and Wall
Street’s heavy hitters are spared the consequences of
their stupid investments. The global economy is a
rigged game, rigged so Third World politicians, rich
investors and global corporations win — and U.S.
taxpayers and workers lose…

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 9, 1997

U.S. — New Target of U.N. Investigators — You don’t have to be a member of the White Mountain Militia to be a bit frosted at the latest high jinks of the boys on Turtle Bay.

Seems that one Bacre Waly Ndiaye, “a U.N. Human Rights Commission specialist on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions,” has been junketing around the United States, checking out death-row facilities and interviewing murderers — to see if their rights have been violated.

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 6, 1997

First, the famous Club of Rome warned us that the world’s oil was about to run out. Then came the “Crash of ‘79″ crowd to predict a second Great Depression, 50 years after the first. Then, the new Malthusians arrived to warn that soaring population growth meant starvation soon on a global scale.

Apocalypse never came, but its purveyors became famous, were widely interviewed and made scads of money, which is why the Chicken Little Chair of American Politics will never for long be vacant. Newest claimants: the Cassandras of “Global Warming”!

by Patrick J. Buchanan – October 2, 1997

Do you trust Bill Clinton?

That is the question both parties will answer in the vote on “fast track,” by which Congress unilaterally surrenders its right to amend any new trade deal Bill Clinton may cut.

In saying “no” to fast track, the Democratic Party has said it does not totally trust Clinton; it wants to retain the right to amend NAFTA II to protect workers. In saying “yes,” the Republican Party is saying: Whatever Bill brings home is just fine with us.