Undermining a Good Cause : Bush doublespeak on trade understandably troubles trading partners

In an election year the power of incumbency includes the federal checkbook. There’s nothing like money to catch the attention of groups of voters. The President demonstrated precisely that in wooing Midwest wheat farmers by announcing the biggest increase in farm subsidies to date. But the opportunistic move may be at expense of the President’s all-important free trade policy, one of the hallmarks of his term.

The $1 billion in new U.S. wheat subsidies undermines the President’s long efforts to free up world trade by reducing tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers. For six years, the Bush Administration has stubbornly and doggedly insisted that the European Community dismantle its hefty farm subsidies.

Resolving the thorny agricultural issue has been one of the biggest obstacles to bringing a successful end to the current round of multilateral trade talks. Now U.S. trading partners understandably are disturbed about the Bush doublespeak on trade.

The new U.S. subsidies, announced by Bush in South Dakota, would support U.S. wheat sales to 28 countries where grain sales are largely dominated by Europe, Australia, Argentina or Canada. While the EC does subsidize grain sales, Australia does not. The country down under has been one of the staunchest supporters of the U.S. effort to eliminate EC subsidies.

For its part, the Administration insists the subsidies are an attempt to jump-start stalled world trade talks by getting Europeans back to the bargaining table. Might that backfire and trigger a trade war instead? Privately, EC officials have expressed dismay and even raised the question of whether EC members will initiate new subsidies of their own to compete with the new U.S. wheat subsidies on world markets.

Mixing government aid with campaigning makes Bush easy fodder for criticism. Democratic presidential contender Gov. Bill Clinton described the new subsidies as election year pork-barrel politics. Bush critics question whether his new North American Free Trade Agreement is a cover for a trade bloc. The President’s otherwise admirable stewardship on world trade hit a sour parochial note on the campaign trail.