By William F. Buckley Jr.
When you think to get mad at the World Trade Organization (news - web sites), bear in mind that the good old U.S.A. was foremost in recommending its creation in 1995. If the idea is free trade, then somebody has to have the authority to rule that you're cheating.
There are many ways to cheat. You manufacture a mousetrap and persuade your congressman to introduce a bill that gives to mousetrap manufacturers tax endearments that result in making the mousetraps very cheap to manufacture. Or you can get your compliant bank to extend credits to the company that it could not have got from any bank at arm's length; and lo, USTRAP Inc. continues life and appeals to foreign buyers with its very low price.
When President Bush (news - web sites) decided to protect steel a year and a half ago, he did it very directly; he simply decreed tariffs on foreign steel. The thunder we heard last week was the World Trade Organization court. It inspected the presidential move on steel and tested all the exclusions that provided for protection. If there was an acute national shortage or if a nation's defenses were imperiled -- you name it. But it was very clear that we were moved to protect steel only for political purposes. Take just the steel that's manufactured in West Virginia. If West Virginia had voted Democratic in 2000 instead of for the GOP, Al Gore (news - web sites) would have been president, not George Bush.
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