The Wall Street Journal Reports that Senator Max Baucus (D. Montana) finally understands free trade. The USDA is considering banning imports of the pangasius fish, from Vietnam, because it is similar to US-bred catfish. Well, they are considering temporarily suspending imports while they review the measures taken to ensure the safety of eating the fish meets US standards. This, of course, translates into a ban lasting at least several years, for a fish with no recorded instances of sickness in the US. It is protectionism in its finest form.
Most free traders (and freshman economics students) can tell you that if the US bans fish imports from Vietnam, Vietnam will ban imports of something else, probably beef, from the US. Vietnam is the United States’ fifth largest customer for beef, so it could sting.
Max Baucus, being from Montana, has realized that this could be detrimental to his state’s beef (despite creating all those problems over the Korea-US FTA) and that this fish should not be banned. We would like to agree with the journal in saying that he has learned his lesson, but unfortunately we believe it is pure and simple political hypocrisy. When Korea presents complications related to beef exports, he wants to close the deal, but when Vietnamese fish threaten his cattlemen, he suddenly realizes protectionism hurts. But hey, we’ll take it for now.
