A breakthrough in global trade talks promises economic benefits for rich and poor countries alike

* A breakthrough in global trade talks promises economic benefits for rich and poor countries alike. Essentially, the deal would have rich countries stop ripping off their taxpayers with farm subsidies that glut world food markets. In return, poor countries would stop ripping off their consumers by stopping them from buying the rich countries' food.

Such is the peculiar political logic of trade: Governments agree to stop harming their own countries' interests only if other governments do the same. Whether American Democrats will allow the deal is an open question. They have moved, covertly but unmistakably, in a protectionist direction. At the Democratic convention, even Bill Clinton, the nearest thing his party has to a free-trader, tried to score points against President Bush by suggesting that he was not enforcing the trade laws against Japan and China. The motive Clinton ascribed: Those countries help to finance our budget deficit. We would have thought that spinning tales of international financial conspiracies was one thing, at least, beneath the former president. But he manages to find new lows. John Kerry, meanwhile, has said that as president he would "review" our existing trade agreements and set stringent conditions for signing new ones. His only objection to Bush's steel tariffs is that Bush rescinded them. His comments on trade at the convention were wholly negative. The Democrats' initial reaction to the deal has been carping. If they scuttle a global free-trade deal, it will be a bit of unilateralism we could do without.

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