Incoming Members of Congress have hardly opened their mouths about international economic policies but they’re already being cast by some as skeptical of trade. The reality is that trade was not an important issue in the overwhelming majority of congressional races. Next year, new members will be plugged into a Congress that is moving in the direction of greater bipartisan consensus on trade policy and may find good economic and political reasons to support an ambitious international economic agenda.

The fact is that trade was not an important part of most congressional campaigns. The National Foreign Trade Council looked at 52 House races in which a challenger succeeded an incumbent. Of those races, only 12 successful challengers, or about 23 percent, made any mention of international trade in the section on his or her website devoted to key campaign issues. This figure is a dramatic decline from 2006 when more than half of successful candidates the NFTC analyzed mentioned trade.

Trade certainly wasn’t a top issue for the fifteen House Democrats who voted for the U.S.-Central America Free Trade Agreement. Despite calls to make these representatives pay a price for supporting the agreement, all fifteen easily won reelection with no less than 56 percent of the vote. Melissa Bean of Illinois won her general election contest with nearly 60 percent of the vote after handily defeating a primary challenger who criticized her CAFTA vote. Another member of the CAFTA-15, Jim Moran of Virginia, earned 91 percent of the vote against his primary opponent who condemned his trade record before winning nearly 70 percent of the vote in the general election.

Regardless of what incoming members said prior to the election, next year they will enter a Congress that is characterized by strong bipartisan consensus on trade policy. Democrats and Republicans have reached an agreement on key issues such as labor and environmental standards via the bipartisan “May 10th agreement.” The first fruits of the agreement, a free trade agreement with Peru, passed the House last year with greater Democratic support than NAFTA collected in 1993.

Open trade is not the solution to all of our problems, but it is an important part of a larger economic and foreign policy strategy. New members can play a vital role next year in restoring trust and advancing a bipartisan trade policy that benefits American workers, farmers and businesses.

-Jake Colvin, Vice President for Global Trade Issues

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 2:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized .