by Robert Kuttner – The Boston Globe
Why does America need more bilateral trade deals, whose purpose is mainly to help US-based industry move production offshore? The liberal Economic Policy Institute (on whose board I serve) has called for a “pause” in such deals until the United States can reassess its economic interest in the face of globalism, and adopt policies to match. It’s one thing for progressive Democratic politicians to raise these issues. But the most remarkable new proposal, in a week when “free trade” was very much on the defensive, came from a group of corporate CEOs, none of whom can be dismissed as self-interested protectionists. The report, released Thursday by the newly organized Horizon Project, called for a healthy economic nationalism, of the sort practiced by every other major trading nation save perhaps Britain. The test, the report argued, should be not what benefits US-based corporations but what is good for America — its workers, communities, technology base, and ultimately its economy….