Free Trade- just what can we live without?

[pampango]

62. You may believe that FDR's views are irrelevant now. We do not agree. And progressive countries

today govern much the same way that FDR did - low tariffs, lots of trade, high taxes, strong unions, good safety nets. In their minds it is not a "different scenario" at all.

He pushed fair trade, not free trade.

We support the greatest possible freedom of trade and commerce.

We Americans have always believed in freedom of opportunity, and equality of opportunity remains one of the principal objectives of our national life. What we believe in for individuals, we believe in also for Nations. We are opposed to restrictions, whether by public act or private arrangement, which distort and impair commerce, transit, and trade.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=16595

Define that as 'free' or 'fair' as you wish. The quote is from his 1945 State of the Union speech. In FDR's experience, national governments tended to invariably raise tariffs on foreigners to protect their own. When every country did that, trade died. FDR wanted to avoid that in the post-war world.

What he did push for was international cooperation in the governing of trade in the form of the International Trade Organization which had FDR had proposed in the summer of 1944. The ITO would have governed the rules of trade and taken that responsibility out of the hands of national governments.

I consider the ITO to have been a structure for 'fair trade' since it would have enforced (through neutral arbitration) standards on labor rights, full employment and business regulation. Unfortunately, republicans did not like the loss of national sovereignty that went along with the ITO governing trade rules (or perhaps they just did not like the 'fair' aspect of the ITO's trade rules). It took Truman several years to negotiate the ITO. It was eventually signed by 48 countries but republicans had gained strength in congress by then and blocked it from ever being voted on.